 Richard Gonzalez is the CEO of a pharmaceutical company called Abvi. Now this company manufactures two drugs with which they raised the cost of just last year. One of these drugs is an anti-inflammatory and another is a drug used to treat cancer. Yeah. And I'm sure that you'll be surprised to find out that in 2020, the year where a pandemic ravaged the world and is still here with us today, he made $24 million, which is an 11% pay raise. Now he went before the House Oversight and Inform Committee and Representative Katie Porter pressed him to explain why they raised the cost of these drugs, especially during a pandemic when people are struggling. And she basically got him to inadvertently admit that the justification that his company gave was a lie. So she tweeted out, Big Pharma says they need to charge astronomical prices to pay for research and development. Yet the amount they spend on manipulating the market to enrich shareholders completely eclipses what's spent on research and development. Today I confronted a CEO about the industry's lies with visuals. And as you're going to see here, what she did was masterful. Enjoy. I don't have that number off hand. We'll be happy to give it to you. Okay, $1.6 billion, $2.45 billion on R&D, $1.6 billion in litigation and settlements. What about marketing and advertising? How much does that be spent on that? Well, marketing and advertising, we spend about $4 billion a year. Yep, $4.7 billion, $1 billion. How about executive compensation, 2013 to 2018? 2013 to 2018, it's probably on average about $60 million a year. Try $334 on per size. Now, how much did Avvy spend on stock buybacks and shareholders, stock buybacks and dividends to enrich your shareholders from 2013 to 2018? Well, stock buybacks, if you actually look at just pure stock buybacks, it would be about $13 billion. Stock buybacks and dividends is the question, sir. Dividends didn't have to come back with a number for that period of time. $50 billion. So, Mr. Gonzalez, you're spending all this money to make sure you make money, rather than spending money to invest in, develop drugs and help patients with affordable life-saving drugs. You lie to patients when you charge them twice as much for an unimproved drug, and then you lie to policymakers when you tell us that R&D justifies those price increases. The big pharma fairy tale is one of groundbreaking R&D that justifies astronomical prices. But the pharma reality is that you spend most of your company's money making money for yourself and your shareholders. And the fact that you're not honest about this with patients and with policymakers, that you're feeding us lies, that we must pay astronomical prices to get innovative treatments is false. The American people, the patients deserve so much better. I yield back. That was incredible, and that last line was so good that I have to read it again. Quote, the big pharma fairy tale is one of groundbreaking research and development that justifies astronomical prices. But the pharma reality is that you spend most of your company's money making money for yourself and your shareholders. Beautifully put. Beautifully put. They try to justify gouging their customers by saying, you know, we have to raise the cost because producing and manufacturing all of these drugs, discovering new ways to treat illnesses. This all costs money. But as she stated, they spent 2.45 billion on research and development, whereas they spent 50 billion on stock buybacks and dividends. Completely exposed as liars. And this is how you do it. This is how it's done. This isn't the first time that Katie Porter has exposed the CEO, but every time she does it, it's just, it's brilliant. Because they walk right into her trap. They never come prepared. And part of the reason why they always end up getting cornered here is because they have no justification, right? They raise the cost, but it's not like this medication is getting better. They always try to come up with some excuse and it's never, ever convincing. And now you know why it's because they don't have any legitimate reasons to gouge their customers. It's all about making money. We know that they're not using the additional revenue by gouging customers to put that into research and development. They're just enriching their shareholders and themselves. Again, that CEO, Richard Gonzalez, made $24 million in 2020 in a year during a worldwide pandemic where a lot of people lost their jobs around the globe. So that individual got an 11% pay raise by raising the cost of drugs people need, by gouging customers who rely on his company's medication. It's truly morally reprehensible. And this is why we can't have a healthcare industry in America. All of these things, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, they have to be decommodified. Because so long as it's a money making venture, the goal isn't going to be to treat patients. The goal is going to be to make money, to increase profits, to increase shareholder value. In fact, Goldman Sachs notoriously asked whether or not curing patients is a sustainable business model that goes to show you that they don't care about helping people. They just want to make money. So you manufacture a really good drug that people need to survive or perhaps to live their life somewhat manageable or normally. And then what do you do? You raise the price because you know that they need it. Praying on people, quite literally. It's just morally reprehensible. Honestly, companies like this, they need to be nationalized because they've proven that they're not looking out for the public good. And sure, it's the systems that are in place that incentivize this sort of behavior. But again, with no adequate regulations that reign them in, then this is going to continue to happen. And the issue is that the regulations imposed on these companies, they're mere inconveniences. They get a slap on the wrist. You know, sometimes it's more cost efficient to just break the law or, you know, break regulations, pay the fine, and then do what makes you the most money. That's what a lot of companies do. That's how they operate. Not necessarily in this context. I'm not accusing this individual or this company of breaking the law, but certainly what they're doing is unethical and it needs to be reined in legislatively.