When I'm having a bad day, there's something uniquely satisfying about watching Congresswoman Katie Porter skewer someone. And today she did it again. The assassination took place at a congressional hearing: a U.S. congresswoman grilled pharmaceutical company AbbVie about its repeated price increases in the U.S. and price cuts in other countries for Humira, the best-selling prescription drug in the U.S., an anti-inflammatory drug. AbbVie claims that the price increases were necessary for innovation. (Open in new tab) Many legislators, especially Porter, did not believe it.

After taking out her trusty and dangerous whiteboard, which many white men had come to fear (Abbi CEO Richard Gonzalez was not in front of the camera at this moment, but it is not hard to imagine that he was quivering with fear), Porter told Gonzalez that Abbi was going to buy its own stock asked him how much he was spending on purchases and dividends. President Gonzalez replied that he would get back to him later. Porter then brought out a large sticky note showing that AbbVie spent $50 billion between 2013 and 2018 on share buybacks and dividends to enrich shareholders, and much less on research and development (R&D, the division that works to improve drugs).

Porter began trending on Twitter after posting a clip of her question.

"The fairy tale of big pharma is that breakthrough R&D justifies astronomical prices, but the reality of pharma is that you are spending most of the company's money on yourself and your shareholders. They tell us the lie that we have to pay astronomical prices to get innovative products."

I almost felt sick watching. Almost.