immuno-oncology treatment could appear in future years since it finished No.
BMS has another newcomer to the list, the cancer immunotherapy Opdivo ® (nivollumab), which outsold its rival Keytruda® (pembrolizumab)-though the Merck & Co.
Two drugs are new to the best-seller list this year: The Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS)/Pfizer anticoagulant Eliquis ® (apixaban) could be ranked for 2017 since unlike the previous year, Pfizer included Eliquis-specific figures in its fourth-quarter results. The rest of the list saw sales declines since 2016, most often reflecting the launch of generic competitors or insurer discounts.
Nine of last year’s 15 top-selling drugs saw year-over-year sales gains, with five of the nine registering double-digit increases (and a sixth coming close at 9.4%). The top-selling drug on last year’s list was the same one that topped GEN’s first list of best-selling drugs in 2013, when it generated $10.659 billion-which means that its sales have nearly doubled, rocketing almost 73%, in the past five years. Increased sharing of discounts and other actions aimed at lowering prices will reduce profits for Biopharmas, as well as shrink how much they ultimately generate in sales from their therapies.īelow is GEN’s updated top 15 list of top-selling prescription drugs. is projected to reach $590 billion by 2020, up from $337 billion in 2015, according to insurance industry group America’s Health Insurance Programs (AHIP). Other proposals would allow up to five states to determine what drugs could be covered, cap out-of-pocket spending for Medicare enrollees, and accelerate development of generic drugs.ĭrug spending in the U.S. One proposal would require insurers and pharmacy benefit managers to share with Part D Medicaid enrollees more of the discounts they receive from drug manufacturers and would allow insurers to cover just one drug per category instead of two. A week earlier, he highlighted proposals to lower drug prices that were contained in both a white paper by the presidential Council of Economic Advisers and included in the $4.4 trillion budget proposed by President Donald Trump for the 2019 federal fiscal year, which starts October 1. UnitedHealthcare’s announcement brought the insurer praise from Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. When the policy is implemented starting next year, the insurer says, consumers will see lower out-of-pocket costs as the insurer shares with them savings from pharmacy manufacturer rebates at the time of purchase. The most recent such development (at deadline) came March 6, when UnitedHealthcare announced it will expand pharmacy discounts to more than 7 million people enrolled in its insured commercial group benefit plans. Even as drug costs remain sky-high enough to anger American patients, several recent developments suggest that key stakeholders may finally be getting the message to do something about them, or at least look like they’re doing something.