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 

1. 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.

2. Genentech, Lucentis (ranibizumab), £250m. Combatting the vision-threatening choroidal neovascularisation, this drug is the first sight saving drug to appear on our list.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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