Researchers from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) Report on Findings in Clinical and Social Pharmacy (Prescription drug spending by payer: Implications for managed care): Drugs and Therapies – Clinical and Social Pharmacy

2024 MAR 07 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- New study results on clinical and social pharmacy have been published. According to news reporting from State College, Pennsylvania, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “Brand-name prescription drugs are an important driver of prescription drug spending, but different payers may bear these costs differentially necessitating different policy goals for each payer. But little is known about how the top 10 selling drugs in the U.S. impact spending across payers.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State): “To estimate the differential spending burden of top prescription drugs on Medicaid, Medicare, commercial coverage, and out-of-pocket (OOP) spending. The percentage of total prescription drug spending, total spending, total prescriptions, and average cost per prescription overall and for each of the following payers - Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, and OOP - was calculated for each of the top 10 selling prescription drugs using 2017-2019 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data. These 10 prescription drugs accounted for average annual spending of $83.4 billion and 19.0% of all prescription drug spending. Medicare tended to contribute the highest fraction of spending. The average annual cost per prescription ranged from $500 for Advair to $7400 for Tecfidera. Significant variation in the average annual number of prescriptions filled was observed, ranging from 1.4 million for Tecfidera to 13.6 million for Lantus.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “The findings highlight the significant impact of the top 10 selling prescription drugs on U.S. prescription drug spending. The wide variation in per prescription cost as well as contribution to each payer’s prescription drug burden emphasizes how policies targeting top-selling drugs may differentially impact payers as well as how payer-specific policies may differ substantially even for top selling drugs.”

For more information on this research see: Prescription drug spending by payer: Implications for managed care. Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy, 2024,13():100406. The publisher for Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy is Elsevier.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcsop.2024.100406.

Our news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Yousef Chavehpour, Department of Health Policy and Administration, Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) (YC, JES), State College, PA, United States. Additional authors for this research include Rajesh Balkrishnan, Joel E. Segel.

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