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Plus, Cassidy calls for 340B reform, Halozyme sues Merck, and more Read in browser
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top stories
1. Drugmakers see a substantial, but manageable, hit to business from tariffs. But the worst may lie ahead
2. Merck is ‘well-positioned’ on Keytruda ahead of threatened pharma tariffs, CEO says
3. Cassidy urges congressional reforms to 340B drug discount program after investigation
4. Halozyme sues Merck, alleging injectable Keytruda will infringe its patents
5. Only two-thirds of FDA-approved biosimilars have launched, report finds
6. Bristol Myers CEO signals dealmaking will be a top priority in 2025
7. Bristol Myers' transition moves forward as it raises 2025 revenue forecast
8. Merck’s Gardasil sales sink further amid China market pressure
9. Sanofi's Altuviiio closing in on blockbuster status, Dupixent sales surge
10. Roche CEO warns that tariffs could impact dealmaking
11. Thermo Fisher buckles up for US-China trade war, budgets $2B to ease impact
more stories
 
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Alexis Kramer
Editor, Endpoints News
1
by Andrew Dunn

For the drug in­dus­try, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump's tar­iffs haven't start­ed to re­al­ly hurt. At least not yet.

On Thurs­day, sev­er­al of the world’s largest phar­ma com­pa­nies — Mer­ck, Bris­tol My­ers Squibb, Sanofi and Roche — re­port­ed quar­ter­ly earn­ings and shared their fi­nan­cial fore­casts for the year. The mes­sage from the in­dus­try is that the im­pact of the tar­iffs is re­al, but man­age­able. And the drug­mak­ers were ea­ger to po­si­tion them­selves as ful­ly pre­pared for what­ev­er may come next.

“We have run all sce­nar­ios,” Sanofi CFO François-Xavier Roger said on a call with re­porters Thurs­day.

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2
by Nicole DeFeudis

Mer­ck CEO Rob Davis told in­vestors on Thurs­day that he’s con­fi­dent in the com­pa­ny’s abil­i­ty to pro­tect its top-sell­ing prod­uct from the po­ten­tial im­pacts of in­dus­try-spe­cif­ic tar­iffs.

With­out go­ing in­to much de­tail on the im­pli­ca­tions of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal tar­iffs threat­ened by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, Davis said dur­ing the com­pa­ny’s first-quar­ter earn­ings call that Mer­ck is “as well-po­si­tioned on Keytru­da as you can be.”

Keytru­da is Mer­ck’s “biggest ex­po­sure” in the near term, but the com­pa­ny has “ba­si­cal­ly on-hand in­ven­to­ry in the Unit­ed States to pro­tect us through all of 2025,” with plans un­der­way to pre­pare for 2026 and 2027, he said.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, we have to wait and see what the tar­iffs are, so I don't want to speak to the spe­cif­ic im­pli­ca­tions,” Davis said. “But I think we're po­si­tioned on both Keytru­da and the new prod­ucts.”

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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
3
by Zachary Brennan

The grow­ing drug dis­count pro­gram for low-in­come Amer­i­cans, known as the 340B pro­gram, has "trans­paren­cy and over­sight con­cerns" and needs to be re­formed, Sen. Bill Cas­sidy (R-LA), chair of the Sen­ate Health, Ed­u­ca­tion, La­bor and Pen­sions Com­mit­tee, said in a sweep­ing new re­port re­leased Thurs­day.

The re­port is the re­sult of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion that be­gan in 2023 on how 340B op­er­ates, and it calls for wider con­gres­sion­al re­forms to en­sure 340B dis­counts trans­late to bet­ter ac­cess and low­er costs for pa­tients. An­nu­al re­port­ing on how hos­pi­tal­s' 340B rev­enue is used to en­sure pa­tient sav­ings is among the trans­paren­cy re­forms Cas­sidy pro­pos­es.

In re­sponse to Cas­sidy's in­quiries from last Sep­tem­ber, the re­port states that Eli Lil­ly, Am­gen and John­son & John­son said they've pro­vid­ed bil­lions of dol­lars in dis­counts on drugs through 340B. All cri­tiqued the pro­gram for parts of what it's be­come, al­though none called for the elim­i­na­tion of 340B.

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4
by Max Bayer

San Diego biotech Halozyme is su­ing Mer­ck over an in­jectable ver­sion of its block­buster can­cer drug, al­leg­ing that the new for­mu­la­tion will in­fringe on Halozyme's un­der-the-skin de­liv­ery patents.

The com­pa­ny al­leged Thurs­day that sub­cu­ta­neous Keytru­da will in­fringe on patents that Halozyme filed be­gin­ning in 2011. Mer­ck is set to hear back from the FDA on its ap­pli­ca­tion for the prod­uct by the end of Sep­tem­ber and plans to launch this year, ac­cord­ing to Halozyme.

The law­suit, filed in fed­er­al dis­trict court in New Jer­sey, fol­lows through on a warn­ing Halozyme is­sued last month.

“Mer­ck has long been aware of Halozyme's patents and still pro­ceed­ed to ap­pro­pri­ate Halozyme's tech­nol­o­gy in or­der to de­vel­op SC Keytru­da," Halozyme chief le­gal of­fi­cer Mark Sny­der said in a re­lease.

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