Data from CMS projections and pharmacy benefit manager reports show a decline in drug spending growth.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — one of the drug industry's largest lobbying groups — on Friday highlighted main findings from the three reports in a post on its website.
CMS' national health expenditure projections
1. Medicine spending grew by 5 percent in 2016, compared to 9 percent in 2015.
2. The report found medicine spending from 2015 to 2016 had the largest decline of all healthcare categories.
3. Medicine spending and total healthcare spending are expected to grow by about 6 percent annually over the next decade.
Express Scripts' drug trend report
4. While brand name list prices increased by almost 11 percent in 2016, Express Scripts maintained unit cost increases for employers to 2.5 percent across all drugs.
5. Per-person spending on prescription drugs increased by 3.8 percent in 2016, compared to 5.2 percent in the year prior, according to the report.
6. Utilization trend, or the rate of change in total days' supply of medication per member across prescriptions, decreased from 2 percent in 2015 to 1.3 percent in 2016.
Prime Therapeutics' drug spending report
7. The PBM reported a 2.5 percent increase in overall drug spending for its members in 2016.
8. Specialty drug spending increased by 13.7 percent last year, which was offset by a 1.7 percent decrease in spending on traditional drugs, according to a news release.
9. The PBM achieved a 5 percent reduction in the average cost per generic prescription for 2016 and its members increased generic utilization from 83.1 to 84.7 percent last year.
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