(Reuters) -Drugmaker Merck said on Tuesday it expects its top selling cancer therapy Keytruda to be selected in 2026 for government price setting, which would become effective on January 1, 2028.
The company said in a regulatory filing it expects U.S. sales of Keytruda, which had brought in sales of $29.48 billion in 2024, to decline soon after.
Keytruda accounted for 46% of Merck’s total sales in 2024. Merck added it expects U.S. sales of Keytruda to further decline upon loss of key patents in 2028.
The treatment, approved in 2014, harnesses the body’s own immune system to fight cancers with dramatic results.
Drugmakers have been hoping to change a Biden-era law that allows Medicare, the government health plan for Americans aged 65 and up, to negotiate prices for its costliest medicines, including Novo Nordisk’s popular weight-loss drug Wegovy.
The price negotiation process was established under former President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.
The U.S. government in January released a list of 15 drugs, the second group of medications targeted for Medicare price negotiations for 2027 that include Pfizer’s cancer drugs Ibrance and Xtandi, among others.
Last year, the Biden administration had negotiated price cuts that ranged from 38% to 79% for 10 highly popular prescription drugs used by Medicare, which will be effective in 2026.
The Donald Trump administration said it will aim for “greater transparency” in Medicare drug price negotiations as the pharmaceutical industry has fought the negotiation program, saying it will stifle innovation.
The drug industry has been pushing the Trump administration to ease the rules, asking, for example, to delay the timeline under which small molecule drugs become eligible for negotiation.
(Reporting by Sneha S K in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
