NEW ANALYSIS FINDS 'LAUNCH PRICES FOR NEW DRUGS "SIGNIFICANTLY" EXCEED INFLATION AND OFFER INSUFFICIENT VALUE'

The following information was released by the America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP):

In case you missed it, STAT reports that [a]mid intensifying angst over prescription drug prices, a new analysis by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) finds the median net price for 154 newly launched medicines, when adjusted for inflation and manufacturer discounts, rose by 51% between 2022 and 2024.

Drugmakers Ever-Rising Prices Costing Americans Billions of Dollars More

Meanwhile, ICER also took another look at 23 of those 154 drugs that it had previously reviewed and found 16 had annual net prices that exceeded the upper limits of its Health Benefit Price Benchmark. As a result, the estimated first-year spending was $1.92 billion, compared with $431 million to $661 million if going by the benchmark. This meant an additional $1.26 billion to $1.49 billion was spent in the first year of sales.

ICER determined this would be like forsaking 12,000 years of life that could have been gained by the population at large had the drugs been priced lower. Looked at another way, if the excess costs had been passed along as premium increases, 97,400 to 115,100 people might have lost insurance coverage and roughly 400 deaths would have occurred.

One example was the Leqembi treatment for Alzheimers. The net price was estimated at nearly $26,500, but the ICER benchmark placed the value at between $8,900 and $21,500, suggesting a discount of 19% to 66% would be appropriate. Another was Winrevair for tackling pulmonary arterial hypertension. The estimated net price was $196,000 but ICER benchmarked the value at $17,900 to $35,400, pointing to a discount of 82% to 91%.

The findings underscore that, despite ongoing controversy over pricing for prescription medicines, some new drugs continue to be launched at ever-rising prices. And in some cases, the newly launched treatments do not provide sufficient value, which is a prescription for a lack of affordability, ICER found. The upshot is that these trends are placing further financial strain on the already pressured U.S. health care system, according to Sarah Emond, who runs the nonprofit.

The report arrives amid intensifying debate over how to alleviate the rising cost of prescription drugs, which has become a pocketbook issue for a growing number of Americans over the past two decades. The issue has worsened as new breakthrough treatments, such as cell and gene therapies, arrive to combat hard-to-treat diseases.

What Theyre Saying: Drugmakers alone set their exorbitant prices, and they alone can lower them. While drugmakers lobby relentlessly for a blank check to continue overcharging Americans, health plans remain committed to working constructively with policymakers to advance commonsense, bipartisan reformssuch as increasing transparency and cracking down on anticompetitive practicesto ensure access and lower drug prices, AHIP spokesman Chris Bond said.

Go Deeper: Read STATs full coverage here, and read the ICER analysis here.