In case you missed it, Johnson & Johnson reported earnings for the second
quarter of the year that beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations after already
hiking prescription drug prices 30 times just so far this year. Johnson &
Johnson has consistently beat Wall Street analysts’ revenue expectations for
years, including in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 — while repeatedly
hiking prices on brand name products and deploying anti-competitive tactics to
undermine competition from more affordable alternatives.





 

July 25, 2025



TOPLINE



In case you missed it, Johnson & Johnson reported earnings for the second
quarter of the year that beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations after already
hiking prescription drug prices 30 times just so far this year. Johnson &
Johnson has consistently beat Wall Street analysts’ revenue expectations for
years, including in2019
<[link removed]>, 2020
<[link removed]>,
2021 <[link removed]>, 2022
<[link removed]>
,2023 <[link removed]>and
2024 <[link removed]>—
while repeatedly hiking prices on brand name products and deploying
anti-competitive tactics to undermine competition from more affordable
alternatives.



Johnson & Johnson has hiked prices on 30 prescription drugs
<[link removed]> in 2025, including a 5.5
percent increase on multiple myeloma drug Darzalex and a 4.7 percent increase
on psoriasis drug Stelara. Read more on Johnson & Johnson’s earnings, fueled by
price hikes and anti-competitive tacticsHERE
<[link removed]>.



QUOTES OF THE WEEK



“You know the ads with the catchy jingle and flashy images of patients rock
climbing, golfing, dancing, [or] parading? Big Pharma spends more than $6
billion a year to flood the airwaves with ads for the latest wonder-drug. Why?
Why would they spend this much money to advertise [these drugs]? They [Big
Pharma] spend such astronomical sums to promote their drugs because it
increases their profit margins.”



- U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)
<[link removed]>





DATA POINTS YOU SHOULD KNOW



$50 Billion



The amount drug spending grew in 2024, to a total of $487 billion, according
to areport
<[link removed]>
from HIT Consultant.



TWEETS OF THE WEEK



@ChuckGrassley <[link removed]>: “2day
Sen Durbin & I offered our Rx Price Transparency 4 Consumers Act on Senate
floor It was blocked but will keep fighting 2 hold Big Pharma accountable &
require price disclosure in drug ads Its COMMON SENSE!”



@SenatorDurbin <[link removed]>:
“NEWS: Sen. Grassley and I will try to pass our bill today to crack down on
drug ads. Big

Pharma floods TV with deceptive Rx ads, but always keeps price secret. Our
bill makes Pharma tell the price in the commercial. President Trump and Sec.
Kennedy agree.”



ROAD TO RECOVERY



Inside Health Policy: Patent Reforms Take Center Stage At First FTC-DOJ Drug
Pricing Panel
<[link removed]>



Academics and advocates for affordable drugs pressed for patent reforms to
boost the accessibility and affordability of generic drugs and biosimilars at a
recent event hosted by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice
Department’s Antitrust Division, touting reforms like prohibiting payments to
delay the market entry of lower-cost medications and barring multiple patent
filings to extend market exclusivity.



The Office Of U.S. Senator Dick Durbin: Durbin, Grassley Ask For Unanimous
Consent To Pass Their Bill To Crack Down On Pharmaceutical Advertisements
<[link removed]>



Today on the Senate floor, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and
U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked for unanimous consent (UC) to pass
their bipartisan Drug-price Transparency for Consumers (DTC) Act, a bipartisan
bill that would require price disclosures on advertisements for prescription
drugs in order to empower patients and reduce Americans’ colossal spending on
medications. The United States is one of only two industrialized countries in
the world that allow drug advertising. Despite prior support for the measure
from the Trump Administration, the request was blocked by a Senate Republican.



MM+M: Beyond RFK Jr., Pharma TV Ad Ban Gains Congressional Momentum
<[link removed]>



[C]ritics often point out that the U.S. and New Zealand are the only two
countries that allow DTC pharma advertising. They charge that the practice
coaxes patients into asking their doctors for brand-name medications and that
the advertising spend would be better utilized as a reinvestment in research
and development. Additionally, pharma companies spend billions of dollars on
DTC advertising each year, but studies repeatedly show that this exercise
delivers billions in prescription drug sales, too.



PHARMA’S POOR PROGNOSIS



STAT News: Study Of GLP-1 Guidelines For Teens Points To Potential For
Influence From Drugmakers
<[link removed]>



American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines that set off a new era in obesity
treatment — and a national debate about whether children should be prescribed
weight loss drugs — may have been shaped by pharmaceutical industry influence,
a new analysis suggests. Over one-third of people who helped develop the 2023
“Clinical Practice Guideline for the Evaluation and Treatment of Children and
Adolescents With Obesity” had undisclosed financial ties to obesity drugmakers,
a paper published this month in the journal BMJ found.



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