May 9, 2025
TOPLINE
In case you missed it, the Big Pharma manufacturers of blockbuster brand name GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and weight loss, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, recently reported first quarter earnings, with each company reporting strong earnings that beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations after hiking prices on products in their portfolios earlier this year.
During the Eli Lilly earnings call, an analyst at Jefferies asked a question regarding the company’s pricing approach to GLP-1s. In response, Lucas Montarce, Chief Financial Officer at Eli Lilly, said he believes the price impressions are consistent with the trends that Eli Lilly has seen in the last twelve months. The pharmaceutical company consistently hikes the prices of its blockbuster drugs, including their GLP-1 drug portfolio. This year alone, Eli Lilly hiked prices on 11 prescription drugs, including their GLP-1 drug Zepbound, by 2.5 percent.
During the Novo Nordisk earnings call, an analyst from Bank of America posed a question about changes to expect on the drug company’s Ozempic marketing strategy, to which Novo Nordisk’s President and Executive Vice President of U.S. operations, Dave Moore, responded the company’s commercial focus for the blockbuster GLP-1 will be to double down on big spending on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising pushing sales of the high-priced blockbuster, including through a new campaign titled the “Ozempic Era.”
Novo Nordisk spent $208 million on DTC advertising promoting Ozempic in 2023 alone. Big Pharma’s staggering spending on advertising directly targeting consumers, like Novo Nordisk’s marketing of Ozempic, often walks hand-in-hand with price hikes on these blockbuster products, increases sales of high-priced drugs, and costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars.
Read more on Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk’s earnings, fueled by price hikes and anti-competitive tactics, HERE and HERE.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“PhRMA lobbyists and industry loyalists are about to start tweeting how Merck is ‘innovating’ Keytruda for patients. If you want to know the real reason they’re product hopping Keytruda just listen to what Merck’s CEO and analysts tell investors.”
- Tahir Amin, CEO, Initiative for Medicine, Access and Knowledge (I-MAK)
DATA POINTS YOU SHOULD KNOW
$233.6 Million
The overall TV ad spend across the top 10 drug brands in April 2025, according to an article by Fierce Pharma.
TWEETS OF THE WEEK
@IMAKglobal: “Our new brief exposes how Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk’s financialized business model relies on abusing the patent system to monopolize the GLP-1 drug market. https://www.i-mak.org/glp-1/”
@ScottAdamsShow: “The United States is 1 of 2 countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to customers. @RobertKennedyJr describes the ramifications of these gargantuan marketing budgets on our public health.”
ROAD TO RECOVERY
Bloomberg Government: GOP Eyes Pharma Tax Hike, Nixing Drug Price Deal for Trump Bill
Lawmakers have separately discussed eliminating a tax deduction for pharmaceutical advertising, Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, said Thursday. It’s unclear whether that provision will be in the final tax cut package. Pharmaceutical ads have come under special scrutiny as most other countries don’t allow drugmakers to run television ads, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called to ban the television ads entirely.
News Nation: Trump Is ‘Deeply Committed’ To Lowering Drug Prices: FDA Commissioner
FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary joins “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” to discuss whether Trump can effectively lower drug prices.
PHARMA’S POOR PROGNOSIS
MM+M: Big Pharma’s Reputation Declines For Second Year In A Row
The pharma industry’s reputation has continued to slide — and it’s mostly due to the persistent issue of high drug costs, according to a report released by research firm PatientView this week. Fifty-six percent of the surveyed patient groups said the industry had an “excellent” or “good” reputation last year, a drop from 57% the year prior and 60% in 2021. PatientView surveyed more than 2,500 patient groups worldwide for its annual “Corporate Reputation of Pharma” report. This year, it examined the reputations of 46 Big Pharma companies — including the likes of AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson.
ProPublica: Why Do Americans Pay More For Prescription Drugs?
In the U.S., the price of Revlimid, a brand-name cancer drug, has been increasing for two decades. It now sells for nearly $1,000 a pill. In Europe, the price has been consistently lower — in some countries by two-thirds. I started reporting on Revlimid after I was prescribed the drug following a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. Stunned by the high price, I found that the drugmaker, Celgene, had used Revlimid as its own personal piggy bank for more than a decade, raising the price in the U.S. whenever it saw fit. Even with lower prices in Europe, Celgene still made a profit there, a former executive told Congress. That added to the more than $21 billion in net earnings the company made after Revlimid was introduced in 2005.
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