US drug spend soars to all-time high in 2014
pharmafile | April 14, 2015 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Sales and Marketing | Lipitor, Obama, UK Health and Social Care Information Centre, US, drug spend, prescribing
The number of prescriptions dispensed in the US rose by 13% in 2014 a new report has shown.
The increase of $43.4 billion is the highest level of growth since 2001, and the total amount – $374 billion – is the most ever spent on medicines in the US in one year.
Figures from the IMS Health Institute for Healthcare Informatics show the combination of increased healthcare coverage gained under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, fewer patent expirations and new blockbuster hepatitis C treatments boosted the growth in prescribing to a near 15-year high.
New medicines contributed $20.3 billion in 2014, including $11.3 billion from four new hepatitis C treatments. Some 42 new drugs came to market in 2014, a number that was also the highest since 2001, including 18 new treatments for orphan drugs.
In the first full year of enrolment under the Obama Act, patients in states with expanded eligibility filled prescriptions 25.4% more than the prior year, compared with 2.8% more in states where eligibility remained the same. Overall, 15.7 million more people gained health insurance coverage in the US in 2014.
However, the health service research group that compiled the report says 2014 was ‘a unique year’ and it does not believe the figures ‘signal a long-term inflationary trend’.
“We certainly expect to see growth in the market size and spending level in 2015, but not at the rate of growth that we’re reporting for 2014,” says Murray Aitken, executive director of the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. “We know that the patent expiry impact will be larger in 2015 than it was last year,” he adds.
In the US the launch of new generic versions of branded drugs reduced spending by only about $12 billion in 2014. This is much less than the financial impact seen the year before of about $20 billion in savings and $29 billion in 2012 – when cheap generic versions of Pfizer’s top-selling cholesterol drug Lipitor began to flood the market. In the UK, generic versions of Lipitor helped save the NHS £1.3 billion in 2013.
The US figures come after a report by the UK Health and Social Care Information Centre found more than 1.1 billion prescription items were dispensed in the NHS in England in 2014. Simvastatin was the most commonly prescribed drug in England in 2014, with 37.8 million items dispensed at a net ingredient cost of £50.6m, along with other cardiovascular disease drugs.
Lilian Anekwe
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