A complaint filed by Merck, a multinational pharmaceutical company, alleges that the drug price negotiation process detailed in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) violates the Constitution. A provision of the IRA created the Drug Price Negotiation Process, which allows the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to negotiate the price of drugs from a fixed list for the first time in its history. However, Merck has labelled the process a “sham,” asserting that it violates the First and Fifth Amendment by compelling speech on behalf of the company and that selling at a government-determined price amounts to coercion. 

Merck is the first company to challenge this provision of the IRA with many analyst and industry members expecting more lawsuits to arrive as well as predicting that this lawsuit will make it to the Supreme Court.