Total pharmaceutical spend for hospitals and health systems will increase by 3.1 percent in 2022, Vizient projected in its pharmacy market outlook, released July 28.
Vizient, a healthcare services company and group purchasing organization, developed its pharmacy market outlook by analyzing its member hospitals' pharmaceutical purchase data. The data analysis period was April 2020 through March 2021.
Five predictions from the report:
- Oncology will remain the top therapeutic class in spend. Oncology medications make up nearly 25 percent of Vizient hospitals' spend, and total oncology drug spend will increase by 3.25 percent in 2022 as more new molecular entities are approved by the FDA.
- Adalimumab, a rheumatoid arthritis drug, will continue to be ranked first in terms of spending until it faces biosimilar competition.
- Spending on diabetes drugs such as insulin will increase by 2.63 percent in 2022. Health systems are expected to use more diabetes drugs, as more people are being diagnosed with the condition.
- Specialty drug spend will grow by 4.68 percent as a greater number of specialty drugs are approved by the FDA.
- The evolving COVID-19 pandemic will play a big role in determining hospitals' drug purchases. During the data analysis period, remdesivir made up the third-highest drug spend overall among Vizient hospitals and was the No. 1 infectious disease-related medication.
"The continuing emergence of variants, combined with significant vaccine hesitancy, is creating doubt that we will have a quick return to normal and has led Vizient to increase its projections on overall spending on related treatments," Dan Kistner, Vizient's group senior vice president of pharmacy solutions, said in a news release.
Read the full report here.