Top 10 medicines issued in England by prescription cost in 2014-15
pharmafile | March 2, 2016 | Feature | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Cost, Humira, NHS, prescription
- AbbVie, Humira (adalimumab), £371m. This drug treats a variety of conditions including psoriatic arthritics, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The cost of prescribing of AbbVie’s blockbuster was by far the highest of all medicines by some distance.
- Genentech, Lucentis (ranibizumab), £250m. Combatting the vision-threatening choroidal neovascularisation, this drug is the first sight saving drug to appear on our list.
- Amgen, Embrel (etanercept), £229m. This anti-TNF (tumour necrosis factor) drug is used to reduce inflammatory types of arthritis, such as rheumatoid arthritis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
- Remicade, (infliximab), £159m. This drug is also used to treat auto-immune diseases such as Crohn’s and psoriatic arthritis that works against tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) to treat these diseases.
- Roche, MabThera, (rituximab), £146m. This chimeric monoclonal antibody destroys B cells, so is used to treat diseases that are characterised by excessive, overactive or dysfunctional B cells, which include lymphomas, leukaemias and auto-immune disorders.
- Roche, Herclon (trastuzumab), £145m. Roche’s second entry on this list is a cancer drug used when the cells have high levels of the HER2 protein (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2). It is used most commonly in breast, stomach and oesophageal cancers.
- Regeneron, Eylea, (aflibercept), £134m. A vision-saving drug developed by Sanofi subsidiary Regeneron, Eylea has been approved by NICE for injection for treating wet age-related macular degeneration.
- Celgene, Revlimid, (lenalidomide), £124m. Interfering with the chemicals that cells use to signal growth, this drug is used primarily in treatment of multiple myeloma and specific blood disorders.
- Janssen, Zytiga (abiraterone), £97m. A form of hormone therapy, this drug is used to treat prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.
- Novartis, Glivec, (imatinib), £82m. Rounding off the top 10 is a cancer drug used most regularly in chronic myelogenous leukemia. It is a targeted therapy that only kills cancer cells, leaving healthy cells unharmed.
Stats via the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC)
Sean Murray
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