E5 | The Argument That's Stopped Drug Reform for Decades — Dismantled

Big Pharma has one argument they wheel out every single time anyone tries to hold them accountable. Touch our prices and you'll kill innovation. It sounds compelling. It's made legislators flinch for decades. It's made ordinary Americans hesitate. And in Episode 5 of Bust Big Pharma, Rob Burgess runs it through the data — study by study, number by number, company by company.The results are not what the industry would like you to see.This episode is the most research-dense of the series so far. Rob pulls from peer-reviewed studies in the British Medical Journal and the Journal of the American Medical Association, a decade of FDA approval data, and the industry's own audited financial filings to build a case that the innovation argument isn't a fact. It's a defense. And it doesn't hold up.In this episode:The 15 largest drug companies spent $800 billion more on marketing than on R&D over 20 years — from their own financial filingsDrug prices have no meaningful correlation to what those drugs cost to develop — peer-reviewed, Journal of the American Medical AssociationCancer drug prices have no meaningful correlation to how well those drugs actually work — same journal60% of genuinely new drugs are discovered at small, unprofitable startups — not at the companies running the lobbying campaignsThe Humira case study: $42 billion in price increases. Six new drugs in a decade. 45 times less efficient than the industry averageWhy pharma's financial incentives are actively steering R&D away from diabetes and heart disease and toward ultra-high-priced rare disease drugsWhere pharmaceutical innovation actually comes from — and why American taxpayers fund the first risk every single timeThe one regulatory reform that turbocharged AIDS and cancer drug development in the 1980s — and why expanding it is a conservative, market-based solutionThe bottom line: This is not an innovation system. It's a pricing system with an innovation story attached to it. The data says so. Their own books say so. And the American people deserve to know.🔔 New episodes every week — subscribe so you don't miss one. 🌐 Get involved at BustBigPharma.com#BustBigPharma #DrugPricing #PharmaceuticalIndustry #BigPharma #PharmaReform #MAHA #MakeAmericaHealthyAgain #DrugPriceReform #Innovation #RFKJr #Humira #OrphanDrugs #PrescriptionDrugPrices #AmericansForPharmaReform