New research published Wednesday shows that since the coronavirus pandemic began more than two years ago, the five largest pharmaceutical companies in the United States have spent nearly $150 million lobbying against Democratic proposals to lower the country’s increasingly outlandish drug prices.
The analysis by the corporate and government watchdog group Accountable.US estimates that Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, AbbVie, and Merck poured a combined $147.3 million into lobbying Congress since 2020.
“Meanwhile, major pharmaceutical CEOs raked in over $292.6 million” as “their companies saw skyrocketing profits,” the report notes.
“Big Pharma, like many other industries, knows they cannot justify raising prices so high at the same time they boast of excessive profits, generous CEO bonuses, and huge shareholder payouts,” said Accountable.US spokesperson Liz Zelnick. “That is why the big drug companies spend so massively lobbying to keep the market rigged in their
— source commondreams.org | Jake Johnson | Jul 13, 2022