STATEMENT: Not One Penny Responds to Trump’s Faux-Attack on Pfizer

From Stock Buybacks to Increasing CEO’s Compensation, Pfizer Has Used Their Tax Savings to Enrich Stakeholders at Patients’ Expense

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Monday, July 9, 2018

PRESS CONTACT:
press@notonepenny.org

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, in response to President Trump’s tweet slamming Pfizer for once again increasing drug prices, Not One Penny spokesperson Ryan Thomas released the following statement:

“Donald Trump has done nothing to hold Pfizer accountable for their price gouging. In fact, he gave them nearly $11 billion in new tax breaks earlier this year. As prices continue to skyrocket, it’s clear that Trump’s belief that drug companies would use their tax savings to lower costs was either misguided or, more likely, a lie used to push his tax plan through Congress. Trump should be ashamed that he has allowed big pharmaceutical companies to scam the American people.”

KEY FACTS:

Pfizer, the largest pharmaceutical company in the nation by sales, received a $10.7 billion benefit in 2017 from the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” signed into law by President Trump last December.
Pfizer announced a $10 billion stock buyback plan two days before Republicans passed their tax plan.
Since receiving billions in savings from the tax bill, Pfizer has further jacked up prices for widely used prescription drugs and even cut Alzheimers and Parkinsons research American families are depending on.
Pfizer’s latest July price increases apply to widely used drugs including lung-cancer treatment Xalkori, Norvasc blood-pressure pills and Lyrica pain capsules, according to drug-pricing data from RELX PLC’s Elsevier information business.
Many of Pfizer’s price increases lift list prices by 9.4 percent and by double-digit percentages for the year overall.
The price increases belie President Trump’s promise in May that major drug companies would be making “massive” price cuts.
Pfizer’s latest increases also defy pledges by other major pharma companies to make just one increase a year and nothing totaling more than 10 percent.
Pfizer’s CEO, Ian Read, received nearly $28 million in executive compensation in 2017—up 61 percent from $17.3 million in 2016. The vast majority of that 61 percent pay raise came the same month the tax bill was passed in the form of an $8 million bonus.

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