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….
ICIJ’s Cancer Calculus investigation of Merck & Co.’s blockbuster drug Keytruda exposed the intricate web of patents that Merck and other pharmaceutical companies build to protect their profit margins and delay competitors from entering the market and offering potentially more affordable versions of the drug. Timeline of Merck’s active U.S. Keytruda patents Merck’s original patents…
https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/merck-keytruda-cancer-drug-price/ OVERVIEW How Merck turned its wonder drug into a blockbuster — and priced out cancer patients worldwide Apr 13, 2026 https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/cancer-drug-counterfeits-keytruda-immunotherapy/ COUNTERFEITS Counterfeiters cash in on the world’s bestselling cancer drug Apr 13, 2026 https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/cancer-patients-legal-battle-keytruda-lifesaving-drug/ INSURERS ‘They deny the medication that is keeping you alive’: Patients wage grueling legal battles for lifesaving cancer drug…
