U.S. Spending on Medicines Fell for First Time in 2012
Patent expirations on big-name drugs such as Lipitor and Plavix has resulted in modestly less spending on medicines in the United States for the first time in at least 55 years, according to a report released on Thursday.
Overall U.S. spending on medicines totaled $325.8 billion in 2012, down 1 percent from 2011, according to the report from the IMS Institute of Healthcare Informatics. Adjusting for population, per capita spending fell 3.5 percent to $898.
The drop - the first since IMS began tracking drug prices in 1957 - marks the beginning of what is expected to be several years in which U.S. spending on prescription drugs will grow more slowly than overall healthcare costs, said Michael Kleinrock, director of research development at IMS.
The shift is being made at the same time the Affordable Care Act, designed to improve access to healthcare insurance, gets set to take effect next year.
The biggest factor behind the drop was the availability of lower-cost generic versions of drugs such as Pfizer Inc’s cholesterol-lowering Lipitor. New generics contributed $28.9 billion to last year’s reduction in medicine spending.
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