WASHINGTON The Biden administration is confident it will succeed in the courts against Merck & Co's lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the White House said, defending the Medicare health insurance program's authority to seek deals on medicine prices.

"We are confident we will succeed in the courts: there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices," White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Jasper Ward; writing by Susan Heavey; editing by Chris Reese)