Your Money or Your Life: 10 TV Drugs That Cost $200,000 or More a Year

You settle in to watch your favorite show. Then a commercial starts. A smiling couple walks on a beach while a calm voice names a drug you have never heard of. The drug treats a disease you have never heard of, too. Next comes the fast list of side effects. One detail never shows up: the price.

I looked up the prices. Many of these medicines cost more than a new car every single year. This post covers ten drugs that run TV ads and carry list prices of about $200,000 or more per year. (List price is the sticker price before insurance and discounts.) After the list, I explain why these prices look like greed to me.

The 10 Drugs

1. Ultomiris

Ultomiris treats generalized myasthenia gravis, a rare disease that weakens the muscles. It also treats a rare blood disorder. When it launched, Alexion priced it about 10 percent below its older drug’s yearly cost. That older drug, Soliris, cost about $653,000 a year before discounts. So Ultomiris runs well over half a million dollars a year. The FDA ruled that a 2025 Ultomiris TV ad was false or misleading.

2. Amvuttra

Amvuttra treats a rare heart disease called ATTR-CM. In this disease, harmful proteins build up in the heart and make it harder to pump. Each shot costs about $119,000, or $476,000 a year. The FDA objected to its TV ad, which showed patients whale watching and cheering at football games. Alnylam stopped airing the ad after the FDA’s letter.

3. Tepezza

Tepezza treats thyroid eye disease, which makes the eyes bulge. The full course is eight infusions over about five months. At launch, the list price for a full course was $343,000, though the company said its net price was closer to $200,000. Prices may have shifted since then. The ads used eye-catching animation and ran nationally on TV.

4. Vyndamax

Vyndamax treats the same heart disease as Amvuttra, but it comes as a daily pill from Pfizer. Its list price is about $250,000 a year. One pharmacy quoted about $23,000 for a 30-day supply. Vyndamax has its own TV commercials.

5. Attruby

Attruby is another pill for the same heart disease, made by BridgeBio. Its list price is about $244,000 a year. The FDA also called Attruby’s TV ad false or misleading.

6. Kisqali

Kisqali treats advanced breast cancer, and patients take it as a pill. Novartis listed it at $17,685 per 28-day cycle for the 600 mg dose. Over thirteen cycles, that adds up to about $230,000 a year. The FDA warned Novartis that a Kisqali TV ad overstated the drug’s effect on quality of life.

7. Vyvgart Hytrulo

Vyvgart Hytrulo treats myasthenia gravis and CIDP, a nerve disease that causes weakness. The typical net price for Vyvgart is about $225,000 a year, and Hytrulo sells at the same price. The company has pushed the drug with a TV campaign.

8. Ibrance

Ibrance also treats breast cancer. Its list price is about $16,462 for a 28-day supply. That comes to roughly $214,000 a year by my math. Pfizer launched its first Ibrance TV ad in 2017.

9. Opdivo

Opdivo is an immune therapy for cancers such as melanoma, lung cancer, and kidney cancer. A 240 mg vial lists for $8,101.94. At the standard dose of two vials every four weeks, that comes to about $210,000 a year by my math. Bristol Myers Squibb has spent more than $177 million on national airings of just two Opdivo TV ads.

10. Keytruda

Keytruda is another immune therapy that treats many kinds of cancer. Its U.S. list price is $208,000 a year, compared with about $80,000 in Germany. In 2025, Keytruda brought in $31.7 billion in sales, nearly half of Merck’s revenue. Merck began running Keytruda TV ads in 2017.

Why This Looks Like Greed

First, the ads sell hope and hide the price. In 2023, AbbVie spent $315 million on TV ads for Rinvoq without ever saying it costs $6,400 a month. Meanwhile, a JAMA study found that more than two-thirds of TV-advertised drugs offered little therapeutic value. Johns Hopkins researchers say the shift toward ads may aim to drive demand for drugs that doctors would be less likely to prescribe.

Second, the U.S. pays more than other countries. Look at Keytruda again. The same drug costs Americans about two and a half times what Germans pay. In addition, the United States is one of only two developed countries that allow these ads.

Third, companies price high because they can. Alnylam priced Amvuttra at a big premium over its rivals, even though its trial results did not clearly beat them. Patients with a rare, deadly disease cannot shop around. That leaves them with a choice that feels like “your money or your life.”

Fourth, the profits flow to shareholders. According to an investigation by ICIJ, Merck sent nearly $75 billion to shareholders in dividends and $43 billion in buybacks, while Keytruda sales reached about $163 billion since 2014.

Fifth, the ads have a track record of stretching the truth. Four of the ten drugs above drew FDA letters over their TV ads. In September 2025 alone, the FDA posted 40 untitled letters and 35 warning letters about drug promotion.

Finally, everyone pays. Advertised drugs made up 58 percent of Medicare’s drug spending from 2016 to 2018. That money comes from taxpayers and, through premiums, from all of us.

What the Drug Companies Say

To be fair, the companies make real arguments. First, many of the priciest drugs treat rare diseases, so development and manufacturing costs spread across very few patients. Pfizer also said its price reflects fewer heart complications and matches other drugs, like cancer treatments, with similar prices. In addition, most insured patients never pay list price. Commercially insured patients may pay as little as $0 with a copay card. Medicare users get a yearly cap of about $2,100 in 2026. However, copay cards exclude Medicare and Medicaid patients. Insurers and taxpayers still cover the rest. Critics say that hidden cost is exactly the problem.

What You Can Do

The next time one of these ads plays, ask one simple question: what does it cost? Then ask your doctor whether a cheaper option works just as well. Finally, tell your representatives you want prices shown in drug ads. Senators Durbin and Grassley introduced a bipartisan bill in 2025 that would require it.

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