How Merck turned its wonder drug into a blockbuster -- and priced out cancer patients worldwide

[erronis]

https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/merck-keytruda-cancer-drug-price/
Sydney P. Freedberg, Brenda Medina and Denise Ajiri -- ICIJ

The pharmaceutical giant has built a fortress of patents, traded in secrecy and relentlessly lobbied to guard its revenue kingpin Keytruda.

Just days before Christmas 2025, leaders of nine pharmaceutical companies clustered in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, where Teddy Roosevelt's 1906 Nobel Peace Prize once hung. Photographers flocked for pictures as the executives, three women and six men, stood awkwardly, tapping their feet and drumming their fingers while waiting for President Donald Trump. The pharma chiefs had all struck deals to slash prices on some of their flagship drugs.

Nearly 15 minutes passed before Trump entered the room, trailed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and several senior officials. The president glanced at the executives.

"Wow, what a group of people," Trump said. "They make a lot of money."

Collectively, their annual compensation topped $100 million. But only one -- the bespectacled corporate lawyer with a goatee -- was at the helm of a $65 billion drug juggernaut with a lifesaving medicine that was unaffordable for much of the world: Robert M. Davis, CEO and chairman of Merck & Co., maker of the anti-cancer blockbuster pembrolizumab. Brand name: Keytruda.

. . .



. . .

[biophile]

1. Make drugs for dollars and sell them for thousands

That’s most of the business plan