Pharma giants pay millions to Russian distributor entangled in corruption allegations to win cancer drug business

Confidential whistleblower reports allege that Western companies offer huge bonuses to Russian middlemen, inflating prices for lifesaving treatments at the expense of patients. I n selling its blockbuster anticancer drug Keytruda to the Russian government, the pharmaceutical giant Merck turned to a hospital supplier with friends in high places: Alexey Repik, a now-sanctioned oligarch close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and fluent in the ways of Russia and Western business.