Booming brand-name drugs contribute to growth

For the U.S. pharmaceutical market, 2015 is already shaping up to be another double-digit growth year in terms of prescription spend, according to IMS Health data. This year’s moving annual total spending has increased 12.7% to $399 billion, as of June.



One of the largest trends that will define this year is the boom in brand-name drugs — particularly specialty drugs and drugs to treat diabetes. Comparing the percent of spending they contributed to growth in 2011 (58%) to the 2015 MAT as of June (90%) underscores the dominance of branded drugs. In the 12 months ended June 2015, there has been a $19.8 billion increase in new-brand spending, and 75% of that is attributed to specialty medications.



Within specialty pharmacy, growth is particularly rapid in hepatitis C treatments. In the second quarter of 2015, hepatitis drugs spurred 3.3% of the total 13.5% growth in spending. Taking the first half of 2015, hepatitis C treatments have seen $9.6 billion in spending growth — a vast majority of which is for new and protected brands. There is a similar trend for diabetes drugs, which have seen $8.6 billion in growth as of June, with new and protected brands constituting almost the entirety of spending growth.



Despite the increase in money going to prescriptions, though, the growth of the total number of prescriptions being filled has been slowing for several years — only growing 0.1% between 2013 and 2014, with another 0.1% growth predicted based on the MAT from June. This has to do with the fact that despite the spending growth surrounding branded drugs, they still only constitute 16.8% of total prescriptions dispensed.