Get ready to pay more out of pocket for prescription meds this year.
Drug manufacturers have already raised the prices for nearly 750 medications in the first half of January. Even popular weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro are seeing spikes.
Weight Loss Meds Hit $1,000
Overall drug price increases range widely—from 3 to a nearly 22 percent, according to the report.Specifically, popular weight loss medications Ozempic by Novo Nordisk and Mounjaro by Eli Lilly rose 4.5 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, reaching a cost of almost $1,000 for a month’s supply.
Vaginal insert rings have faced disproportionate hikes between 12-19 percent. Femring’s vaginal ring containing estrogen for menopause symptoms increased 19.7 percent. Millicent’s Intrarosa vaginal insert ring also jumped 12.7 percent.
- Ferriprox oral solution: up 21.4 percent
- Tablet for treating sickle cell disease and thalassemia: up 13.2 percent
- Bicillin, an injected penicillin prescribed for syphilis: up 10 percent
- Hospira’s Demerol injection, a potent hospital-administered pain reliever: up 10 percent
- Arbor Pharma’s Edarbi for lowering blood pressure: up 10 percent
- Pain medications OxyContin and Percocet: up 9 and 9.9 percent, respectively
- Antidepressant Wellbutrin: 9.9 percent
- Azura Pharma’s Eprontia oral solution for pediatric epilepsy: up 8.5 percent
Medicaid to See $2 billion Savings Despite Price Increases
However, the analysis uncovered a silver lining—record decreases for 24 drug products in 2023. This builds on seven additional brands that dropped prices at the end of last year.
These cost savings apply to insulin medications, drugs for pain relief, antidepressants, specifically Prozac, and erectile dysfunction treatments.
Novo Nordisk has slashed prices dramatically on its insulins—Novolog by 75 percent and Levemir by 65 percent. This stems largely from The Inflation Reduction Act, which capped monthly Medicare insulin costs at $35 for seniors.
Other notable drops come from Eli Lilly’s Cialis for erectile dysfunction and enlarged prostate, now 19 percent cheaper, and the opioid pain patch Butrans at 40.5 percent less.
To put it in numbers: the swelling costs from the 629 newly inflated drugs will raise Medicaid prescription spending by $1.7 billion over 2022. Meanwhile, the 30 reductions should save $2 billion in expenses. As the analysts aptly wrote: “$2 billion cheaper is a bigger number than $1.7 billion increase.”
How Are Prices Set?
The U.S. has claimed the dubious honor of having the highest per capita prescription drug spending globally for over a decade now, averaging $1,432 annually per American in 2021, according to Center for American Progress, a public policy research institute. That year, total prescription medication expenditures hit $378 billion, representing close to 9 percent of all national health care spending.These astronomical costs partly stem from the convoluted way prices get established. Key players in this complex system are pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), who are third-party administrators. These influential middlemen, usually in charge, contract with health plans to manage pharmacy benefits. They negotiate prices with big pharmaceutical firms and ensure drugs are included in plan networks.
Presumably, PBMs aim to secure the best deal for drug companies while making medications affordable for insurers and accessible for patients. Yet recent scrutiny has uncovered the massive rebates PBMs have pocketed from both drug manufacturers and pharmacies—at the expense of consumers.
