Diabetes prescriptions jump by 50% in England
pharmafile | August 15, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Humalog, Januvia, NHS, diabetes, spending
Diabetes prescriptions in England have for the first time topped 40 million this year, a rise of nearly 50% compared to six years ago.
The net cost of diabetes drugs also rose by just under 50% in the same period, according to a new report: ‘Prescribing for Diabetes in England: 2005/06 to 2011/12’ by the NHS Information Centre, now called the HSCIC.
In the financial year 2011/12, the 40.6 million diabetic items dispensed – which includes antidiabetics, insulin and blood glucose testing monitors – cost the NHS in England £760.3 million.
This growth is a faster and greater than for prescriptions overall, where items increased by 33% and net ingredient cost rose by just under 11% in the same period.
The report, which focuses on primary care, shows diabetes drugs are taking up a bigger share of both total drugs dispensed and the total net cost to the NHS each year.
It also shows that while the overall cost of all drugs to the NHS fell last year by just over 1%, the diabetes drugs bill increased by nearly five per cent.
The report look at all licensed prescribers – including nurses, pharmacists and GPs, across the NHS in England. The report notes that some costs may be lower given confidential discounts agreed between some pharma firms and the government.
More diabetics, higher cost of medicines
More people are being diagnosed with type II diabetes in England, fuelled by a sedentary lifestyle and an increase in obesity levels, and goes some way to explain the increase in prescriptions.
But this alone does not explain why there has been such a jump in spending – the main reason is due to new and much more expensive products, especially for insulin and antidiabetic drugs, and increased marketing from pharma.
Insulin products accounted for 14% of all items dispensed for diabetes, with the NHS spending £314.7 million for the financial year.
This has grown from £220.6 million spent in 2005/2006 – with extra spend mainly coming from newer human analogue insulin such as Lilly’s Humalog and Novo Nordisk’s NovoRapid.
The biggest proportion of items dispensed came from antidiabetics, representing nearly 70% of all items dispended for the disease. The NHS spent £281 million on these drugs last year, a 91% increase from 2005/2006.
The price of older antidiabetics such as metformin and sulfonylureas have remained static, but the biggest increase in cost has come from new drugs, primarily from MSD’s Januvia and Novo’s Victoza.
HSCIC chief executive Tim Straughan, said: “Our figures show diabetes is having a growing impact on prescribing in a very obvious way – from the amount of prescriptions dispensed to patients in primary care to the annual drugs bill costs to the NHS.
“Other reports we produce, such as our National Diabetes Audit and the Quality and Outcomes Framework, also demonstrate the impact of diabetes is widespread in all areas of the Health Service; from pharmacy to hospital care.
“When all this information is considered together, it presents a full and somewhat concerning picture of the increasing impact of this condition.”
Ben Adams
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