Merck takes Austria’s Keytruda price transparency battle to top court as journalists fight for information
A battle over whether the public has the right to know how much Austria’s public hospitals pay for the blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda is heading to the Constitutional Court.
Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co.’s Austrian subsidiary is challenging journalists’ efforts to obtain that information in a case likely to test the limits of the country’s freedom of information law, which was enacted in Sept. 2025.
The dispute stems from a freedom-of-information campaign by outlets profil and Der Standard as part of the Cancer Calculus, a global investigative collaboration led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Reporters from the Austrian outlets found that Keytruda, developed and marketed by Merck, is the country’s largest hospital medication expense, with estimated payments based on its manufacturer’s listed price reaching 245 million euros in 2024 and more than 900 million euros from 2020 to 2024.
But confidentiality clauses between hospitals and Merck — known as MSD outside the U.S. — mean that even the federal health authority does not know the actual prices hospitals pay after negotiations.
While health authorities in several countries cited confidentiality protections to withhold pricing data during the Cancer Calculus reporting, so far it’s been the denials in Austria that have led to a court battle over transparency.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/merck-keytruda-cancer-drug-price/
Recommended reading IMPACT Senator questions Merck over patent strategy for blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda Jul 02, 2026 OVERVIEW How Merck turned its wonder drug into a blockbuster — and priced out cancer patients worldwide Apr 13, 2026 BEHIND THE SCENES Following the paper trail to Guatemala to uncover what records can’t reveal about access to Keytruda May 11, 2026
