(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
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Merck's cancer drug Keytruda on pace for $17 billion of sales [1]
['Bob Herman', 'Https', 'Www.Axios.Com Authors Bob_Herman']
Date: 2021-10-29
Data: Company filings; Chart: Thomas Oide/Axios
Cancer drug Keytruda is on pace to generate more than $17 billion of revenue this year after reaching a record $4.5 billion of sales in the third quarter.
Why it matters: Keytruda is close to becoming the highest-selling drug in the world and would be a Fortune 200 company on its own.
Driving the news: Keytruda continues to be the core of Merck, even though executives told Wall Street yesterday the company expects to collect between $5 billion and $7 billion, now through 2022, from its coronavirus pill molnupiravir.
That's a lot of money, but molnupiravir still wouldn't be half as much as what Keytruda brings in annually for Merck.
Keytruda represents "the vast majority of the company's revenue growth" and is the company's profit engine, Merck said in a filing earlier this year.
How we got here: Keytruda, which is administered intravenously in a hospital or outpatient office, has been on the market since late 2014 and has shown to be extremely effective.
Merck has obtained several new FDA approvals that expand the drug's label into more types of cancers.
Merck is also pushing to use the drug after surgeries as a way to prevent cancers from coming back.
Between the lines: Because Keytruda is given in a health care facility and not picked up at a pharmacy, the drug is billed and paid for in a different way, but still exposes cancer patients to high out-of-pocket spending regardless of their insurance.
Keytruda has a list price of almost $175,000 per year (and Merck just raised that price by another 2% this month).
That means insured patients who take the drug routinely hit out-of-pocket maximums, which could equal thousands of dollars every year.
The bottom line: Keytruda's patent doesn't expire until 2028, and given the lack of federal drug pricing reform, Keytruda will continue to be among the highest-selling drugs.
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[1] Url:
https://www.axios.com/2021/10/29/keytruda-sales-merck-drug-prices
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