KEYTRUDA
Report: Merck’s blockbuster cancer drug topped $200,000 a year under Trump
Despite the president’s plan to lower prescription medicine costs, the price of many of the most expensive drugs — including several immunotherapy treatments — have continued to rise.
Merck & Co.’s blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda has risen in price to $210,000 for one year’s treatment under President Donald Trump — a 6% increase since last year, a new Senate report found.
The pharmaceutical giant is among more than a dozen companies that signed confidential deals with the Trump administration to lower the prices of some prescription drugs. However, Keytruda, an immunotherapy treatment that accounts for nearly half of Merck’s revenue, has only become more expensive.
In March, Merck’s CEO Robert M. Davis declined to answer questions from ICIJ about the deal, including whether it mentioned Keytruda or if the medicine had been excluded from consideration for lower prices in the United States.
“We cannot disclose the details of this confidential agreement,” Merck said in a statement to ICIJ sent by senior vice president Johanna Herrmann. “However, the agreement overall has a manageable impact in the short- and long-term on our business and is immaterial across the KEYTRUDA family.”
The Food and Drug Administration has approved Keytruda to treat 19 types of tumors in the U.S. But its cost can be ruinous.
The Cancer Calculus, an investigation by ICIJ and 47 media partners published this week, shows how Merck has kept the price of the lifesaving drug sky-high by building a fortress of patents to deter competition and through opaque pricing. An ICIJ analysis found that a standard 200 milligram dose of Keytruda ranged from $1,700 in Indonesia to $12,000 in the U.S., before negotiations and manufacturer rebates.
The Senate report, released by the minority members of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, underscored these vast disparities, noting that the U.S. pays more than five times as much for Keytruda as Japan. Merck declined to comment on the findings.
Keytruda is not the only immunotherapy drug getting more expensive, the report noted. The price of Keytruda’s main competitor, Bristol Myer Squibb’s Opdivo, rose by 4% under Trump, and Johnson & Johnson’s Darzalex, another immunotherapy drug, saw a 6% price rise.
“With very few exceptions, prescription drug prices have gone up, not down, since Trump was elected,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said during a congressional hearing on Thursday.
Under Trump’s sweeping fiscal policy, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Medicare price negotiations for many of the most expensive drugs sold by companies that struck deals with the Trump administration have been delayed or waived. Keytruda and Opdivo were expected to be selected for price negotiations this year, but the policy delayed the negotiations for those drugs until at least 2027.
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., said during Thursday’s congressional hearing that the high prices of drugs like Keytruda are because “the companies have monopolies and charge what they can.”
“To lower price, we’re going to have to directly intervene in the pricing monopolies of Big Pharma,” he said.
Contributing reporter: Sydney P. Freedberg