The five largest pharmaceutical companies in the United States netted approximately $81.9 billion last year, according to a new report by Accountable.us, a non-profit organization that documents the activities of special interest groups.
Accountable.us compiled Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) filings and other financial disclosures from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, AbbVie and Eli Lilly. All together, these five companies increased their earnings in 2022 by more than $8.8 billion over 2021 levels.
Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson are around neck-and-neck as the two U.S. pharmaceutical companies with the largest market capitalizations.
Pharma Profits, Drug Prices and Inflation
Accountable.us, which describes itself as a group seeking to “drive progressive change,” presented these rising net incomes for pharmaceutical companies alongside increasing drug costs in the United States. The organization described the increasing drug prices as a driving cause of inflation, rather than a symptom of the economic phenomenon.“Eli Lilly has raised the price of Humalog insulin drug by 600% since 1996 and has funded efforts to oppose prescription drug price caps,” Accountable.us wrote.
Accountable.us also noted AbbVie’s role in increasing prices for the drugs Humira and Imbruvica by 470 percent since 2003 and by 82 percent since 2013 respectively.
Accountable.us also scrutinized Merck for seeking to sell the COVID-19 antiviral treatment molnupiravir at a rate 40 times what it costs to produce.
Merck said the provisions of the IRA threaten to disincentivize the research and development it has done in the past, “which in time will leave many patients without treatment options.”
Ely Lilly and Johnson & Johnson are members of PhRMA. AbbVie and Merck have also contributed to PhRMA and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla as PhRMA’s treasurer.
Accountable.us argued against claims by pharmaceutical companies that rising drug prices are key to supporting research and development for new drugs because in many cases, these drugmakers spent more on corporate dividends and stock buybacks than on research and development.
The progressive organization also noted an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, stating the IRA’s drug-price control measures could reduce the U.S. federal deficit by $237 billion over the course of the next decade, an average deficit reduction of $23.7 billion per year.