“This [Vioxx] was a big, big revenue driver for Merck. Corporations will go to great lengths to hide this information, even when required by law to turn it over.”Inside the Machine: Big Pharma, Profits and LawsuitsThe legal playbook doesn’t begin when a lawsuit is filed. Taken together, these figures form a sobering scoreboard: Big Pharma persistently breaks the rules, pays steep but manageable penalties and continues to earn enormous profits — leaving the question of real accountability open. Big Pharma Companies With the Highest Total Settlements (1991–2021) COMPANIES SETTLEMENT TOTALS Purdue Pharma $8.9B Johnson & Johnson $8.4B GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) $7.9B Pfizer $4.7B Source: Public CitizenThese are the enforcement actions that, in many ways, define how regulators have tried to hold Big Pharma accountable. Brownlee and Lenzer pointed to the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), the law that lets drug companies pay fees to fund FDA reviews.

Source: New York Times March 31, 2026 13:59 UTC