Several pharmaceutical giants including GSK, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli
Lilly, Gilead, AbbVie, Amgen and Pfizer recently reported earnings for the
third quarter, with all eight companies beating Wall Street analysts’
expectations after increasing prices on more than 100 drugs combined just this
year alone.
November 7, 2025
TOPLINE
Several pharmaceutical giants including GSK, Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli
Lilly, Gilead, AbbVie, Amgen and Pfizer recently reported earnings for the
third quarter, with all eight companies beating Wall Street analysts’
expectations after increasing prices on more than 100 drugs combined just this
year alone.
Several of the companies also raised their earnings forecast for the year,
following the strong quarterly results — thelatest
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indication that Big Pharma is feeling bullish about maintaining its egregious
pricing and anti-competitive practices that fuel blockbuster profits, despite
rising bipartisan scrutiny. As AbbVie’s CEOsaid
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on their earnings call this week: “We’ve beaten and raised in every quarter in
2025.”
Read more on the recent earnings HERE
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andHERE <[link removed]>.
And in case you missed it, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
(CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz last weekannounced
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reforms to accelerate biosimilar approvals — an important step toward
fostering greater competition from more affordable alternatives to Big Pharma’s
high-priced brand name biologics and lowering prescription drug prices.
The announcements included commitments to update FDA guidance to eliminate
comparative efficacy study requirements and streamline biosimilar approvals — a
move that could significantly reduce barriers to fostering greater competition
from more affordable alternatives to high-priced biologic drugs. The FDA also
signaled support for automatically designating all biosimilars as
interchangeable with their reference products and taking steps to increase
domestic biosimilar manufacturing.
Read more on highlights from the announcement HERE
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.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The fastest area of growth of healthcare spending in the United States, and
the fastest area of drug price inflation, is an expensive new class of
medications called biologics… There is a generic version we call a biosimilar,
but the problem is that there’s been a lot of red tape and a lot of difficulty
for biosimilar manufacturers to bring these medications to market.”
Marty Makary, U.S. Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration
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DATA POINTS YOU SHOULD KNOW
Nine in 10 Americans
90 percent of Americans support policy solutions that lead to faster access to
generic drugs, according to a recently releasedsurvey
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Medicines, Access and Knowledge (I-MAK).
TWEETS OF THE WEEK
@HHSGov <[link removed]>: “Last week, new
guidance was announced to make it faster and less costly to develop
biosimilars—safe, effective, lower-cost alternatives to expensive biologic
drugs. This win will lower prescription drug costs for millions of Americans.”
@DrMakaryFDA <[link removed]>: “Generics
have saved Americans trillions of dollars, in part because their streamlined
development process facilitates competition. Now, we’re bringing the same level
of competition to expensive biologic drugs.”
ROAD TO RECOVERY
The Washington Examiner: Dr. Oz And FDA Chief Say Biosimilar Drug Reform Will
Lower Prices
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Trump administration officials pledged Monday that major reforms for
biosimilar drug approvals will expand access and lower prices for some of the
most expensive drugs on the market. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner
Marty Makary and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator
Mehmet Oz outlined further details about the Trump administration’s plan to
slash regulations on biosimilar drug development in an op-ed on Monday.
I-MAK: Understanding Americans’ Top Concerns on Drug Pricing: Corporate Greed
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The Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge (I-MAK) commissioned a
survey of 726 American adults to assess public attitudes toward prescription
drug pricing and potential reforms. Conducted by Franklin & Marshall College’s
Center for Opinion Research in June 2025, this baseline survey reveals
significant bipartisan consensus on the need for prescription drug reform, with
particularly strong support for patent system changes.
PHARMA’S POOR PROGNOSIS
STAT News: Novo Nordisk Spent Millions On Weight Loss Searches That Took
People To Its Ozempic Website, Analysis Found
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Over a recent two-year period, Novo Nordisk spent an estimated $7.5 million on
more than 15,000 paid keywords related to weight loss searches and generated
more than 2.4 million visits to Ozempic.com, even though the medicine is not
approved to combat obesity, a new analysis found. Notably, more than 3,500
keywords contained no mention of the medicine, which is approved to treat
diabetes, including misspellings of the drug name. Meanwhile, nearly $500,000
was spent by the company on weight loss-related terms, such as “Ozempic for
weight loss” and “Ozempic weight loss,” according to the analysis published in
JAMA.
STAT News: Opinion: A $20 Over-The-Counter Drug In Europe Requires A
Prescription And $800 In The U.S.
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A month’s supply of Miebo, Bausch & Lomb’s prescription dry eye drug, costs
$800 or more in the U.S. before insurance. But the same drug — sold as EvoTears
— has been available over-the-counter (OTC) in Europe since 2015 for about $20.
I ordered it online from an overseas pharmacy for $32 including shipping, and
it was delivered in a week. This is, of course, both shocking and unsurprising.
A 2021 RAND study found U.S. prescription drug prices are, on average, more
than 2.5 times higher than in 32 other developed nations. Miebo exemplifies how
some pharmaceutical companies exploit regulatory loopholes and patent
protections, prioritizing profits over patients, eroding trust in health care.
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