Bust Big Pharma

In 2025, AbbVie cut its research and development budget by 29% — the steepest R&D cut of any major pharmaceutical company that year. In the same year, AbbVie's CEO received a 75% pay raise, bringing his total compensation to $32.5 million. Same company. Same year. Same pool of capital. That's where Episode 9 starts. And it only gets more specific from there. Rob Burgess follows the m...

The FDA is supposed to be your watchdog. The agency that stands between you and an industry that, left unchecked, will prioritize profits over your safety. So what happens when the watchdog goes to work for the industry it was supposed to be watching? In this replay of Episode 4, Rob Burgess names names. Three of them. Patrizia Cavazzoni ran the FDA's drug approval center for years — then lef...

One drug. One molecule. 154 patents. That's not a typo — and in this replay episode of Bust Big Pharma, Rob Burgess explains exactly what it means for your pharmacy bill. Ozempic is the most talked-about drug in America right now. But behind the celebrity endorsements and the glossy TV ads is a story most people never hear: how Novo Nordisk built a legal fortress around a single molecule to k...

The Bust Big Pharma bus tour has now crossed more than 30 states, done hundreds of events, and collected enough petition signatures and engagement data to identify exactly which Senate races Big Pharma is most vulnerable in. The man who ran the ground operation for the 2025 tour knows exactly what that looked like from the inside. In Episode 12, Rob sits down with Corey Stevens — former National F...

Last week, Ken Paxton won the Republican Senate primary runoff in Texas. He beat John Cornyn — six-term incumbent, former Senate majority whip, the establishment's choice — because Texas Republican primary voters chose the candidate who had sued Big Pharma. Multiple times. Using words like "illegal" and "bribe." The week before that, Bill Cassidy lost in Louisiana. In Epis...

On May 16th, Bill Cassidy — Chairman of the Senate Health Committee and the top Republican recipient of pharmaceutical money in the 2024 cycle — came in third in his own Republican primary. A senator who took over $1 million from Big Pharma, blocked a fast-track MFN vote, and killed his own codification bill before it ever got a hearing was sent home by the voters of Louisiana. In Episode 10, Rob...

Big Pharma has so much money, they don't just buy politicians — they rent both parties. That's not a conspiracy theory. That's a quote from RFK Jr., and it's exactly what Republican strategist Chris Faulkner breaks down in this episode of Bust Big Pharma. This week's episode is a replay of a previous episode where Rob Burgess sat down with Chris — a veteran political consu...

In 2025, AbbVie cut its research and development budget by 29% — the steepest R&D cut of any major pharmaceutical company that year. In the same year, AbbVie's CEO received a 75% pay raise, bringing his total compensation to $32.5 million. Same company. Same year. Same pool of capital. That's where Episode 9 starts. And it only gets more specific from there. Rob Burgess follows the m...

On December 19th, 2025, 14 pharmaceutical companies shook President Trump's hand and promised most favored nation pricing. The president called it the greatest victory for patient affordability in the history of American health care. Twelve days later, those same companies raised prices on 872 drugs. Then they launched 23 new drugs at an average price of $353,000 a year. In Episode 8, Rob Bur...

Every time a drug's patent is about to expire — every time competition is about to show up and prices are about to fall — Big Pharma runs the same play. It looks different each time. But the architecture is always identical. In Episode 7, Rob Burgess walks through that playbook move by move, using the two biggest-selling drugs in pharmaceutical history to show exactly how it works. First: Hum...

President Trump got 16 of America's largest pharmaceutical companies to the table. He applied real pressure, extracted public commitments on drug pricing that no previous administration had managed to get, and announced the deals from the White House. It should have been a historic win for American patients. Then the SEC filings came out. In Episode 6, Rob Burgess walks through what those 16...

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 res...

The FDA is supposed to be your watchdog. The agency that stands between you and an industry that, left unchecked, will prioritize profits over your safety. So what happens when the watchdog goes to work for the industry it was supposed to be watching? In Episode 4, Rob Burgess names names. Three of them. Patrizia Cavazzoni ran the FDA's drug approval center for years — then left for Pfizer as...

One drug. One molecule. 154 patents. That's not a typo — and in Episode 3 of Bust Big Pharma, Rob Burgess explains exactly what it means for your pharmacy bill. Ozempic is the most talked-about drug in America right now. But behind the celebrity endorsements and the glossy TV ads is a story most people never hear: how Novo Nordisk built a legal fortress around a single molecule to keep cheape...

Big Pharma has so much money, they don't just buy politicians — they rent both parties. That's not a conspiracy theory. That's a quote from RFK Jr., and it's exactly what Republican strategist Chris Faulkner breaks down in this episode of Bust Big Pharma. Rob Burgess sits down with Chris — a veteran political consultant who joined the Bust Big Pharma bus tour across the Southea...

Americans pay 3–5x more for the same prescriptions that Canadians and Europeans pick up for a fraction of the cost. Rob Burgess wants to know why — and in Episode 1 of Bust Big Pharma, he's not letting the industry off the hook. Bust Big Pharma is a project of Americans for Pharma Reform. Not anti-medicine. Not anti-innovation. Anti-exploitation. This episode covers the full indictment: nearl...