SECOND OPINION: BIG PHARMA’S RHETORIC OF DEFLECTION DOESN’T ADDRESS CAUSE OF HIGH PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES
PhRMA Continues to Dodge Responsibility for Egregious Pricing Practices and Anti-Competitive Tactics
A September 29 opinion piece published in The Washington Post from PhRMA President and CEO Steve Ubl is a classic rerun of Big Pharma’s deflection playbook, filled with empty promises and grand pledges meant to deflect responsibility and dodge accountability for high prescription drug prices.
PhRMA, of course, does not acknowledge rapidly rising launch prices being set by brand name manufacturers on new products, years of egregious and unjustified price hikes outpacing inflation, especially on blockbuster medications, or the litany of anti-competitive tactics deployed by Big Pharma to undermine competition from more affordable generics and biosimilars.
Instead, PhRMA falls back on its usual finger-pointing at others in the drug supply chain, with claims about the industry’s commitment to the American people they continue to price-gouge thrown in.
The fact is that brand name drug companies continue to shelter profits overseas to avoid paying U.S. taxes. As documented by a U.S. Senate Committee on Finance investigation earlier this year, companies like Pfizer have perfected “round-tripping” tax avoidance schemes, shifting profits from U.S. sales into foreign subsidiaries. This accounting trick allows pharmaceutical companies to avoid paying billions in federal income tax by treating sales to U.S. customers as foreign income. U.S. Senator and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR) described Pfizer’s move as “what could be the largest tax-dodging scheme in the history of Big Pharma.” Other Big Pharma giants cited for similar practices include Merck, AbbVie and Amgen.
Delivering effective, lasting relief for American patients from out-of-control prescription drug prices must hold Big Pharma accountable.
Large pharmaceutical companies set increasingly outrageous launch prices on new medications when they face no competition in the market and have the greatest possible remaining periods of exclusivity – which are routinely extended through abuse of the U.S. patent system. According to a Reuters analysis, launch prices for prescription drugs first entering the market in the United States more than doubled last year compared to 2021.
Brand name drug companies also continue to hike prescription drug prices at rates outpacing inflation. A 2024 report from AARP found Big Pharma “consistently” increased prices above the rate of inflation between 2006 and 2020. In fact, the report found that Big Pharma increased prices on 943 blockbuster drugs widely used by patients faster than the rate of inflation “in all but one year between 2006 and 2020.”
Big Pharma has not changed that trend. In just the opening days of 2025, Big Pharma hiked prices on 250 medications, with a median increase of 4.5 percent, exceeding the 2.7 percent rate of inflation from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics at the time.
Big Pharma has a long history of price-gouging American patients through tactics designed to game the U.S. patent system and block competition from more affordable alternatives – enabling pharmaceutical manufacturers to maintain monopolies over their biggest money-makers. Big Pharma companies often file many, even dozens or hundreds, of patents on a single medication, a practice known as patent thicketing, to extend exclusivity and block competition from more affordable options, for months, years and even decades.
According to a study recently published in JAMA Health Forum, lost competition due to Big Pharma’s patent thickets on just four widely prescribed brand name drugs cost patients, taxpayers and the U.S. health care system more than $3.5 billion in excess spending over two years.
Big Pharma’s rhetoric does nothing to take true accountability for the root cause of high prescription drug prices. Delivering lower prescription drug prices for the American people must start with lowering the prices set by Big Pharma.
Read more on Big Pharma’s tax-dodging HERE.
Read more on how Big Pharma’s launch prices have more than doubled since 2021 HERE.
Read more on how Big Pharma’s patent thickets on just four widely prescribed brand name drugs cost patients, taxpayers and the U.S. health care system $3.5 billion HERE.
Read more on bipartisan, market-based solutions to hold Big Pharma accountable HERE.
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