CLINICAL NEWS
Don’t Celebrate Just Yet
Though prescription drug spending hit a high of $297.7 billion last year, many of the most widely used generic drugs actually were cheaper at the end of 2015 than when the year began, according to an analysis by
the prescription drug price comparison site GoodRx.
30 of the 50 most popular generic drugs, which cover common conditions from
allergies to heart health to mental disorders, have fallen in price since January
2015.
For example:
▼▼ Fluoxetine (the generic form of Prozac)
dropped 30.4%
▼▼ Montelukast (the generic form of Singulair)
dropped 19.9%
▼▼ Duloxetine (the generic form of Cymbalta)
dropped 10.4%
▼▼ Atorvastatin (the generic form of Lipitor)
dropped 8.2%
▼▼ Losartan (the generic form of Cozaar)
dropped 4.8%
30.4%
19.9%
10.4%
8.2%
4.8%
“The reality is that about 85 percent of drugs taken in this country are generic. ... Those are surprisingly
inexpensive and getting less expensive, in many cases,” the authors of the report wrote. However, while the
retail price of some drugs decreased by 30% or more, some generic drug products had equally substantial
price increases.
Source: GoodRx, “Popular generics with price decreases in 2015,” December 16, 2015.
Drug shortages in the United States have increased in
recent years, and emergency department physicians, in
particular, are feeling the sting of these access issues.
In this longitudinal study of drug shortage data from 2001
to 2014:
There were a total of
1,798 drug shortages.
Follow the Money
Industry is picking up where the National Institutes of Health (NIH) left off in terms of clinical research funding.
From 2006 to 2014, the overall number of clinical trials doubled from 9,321 to 18,400, and the number of those
trials that were backed by industry nearly doubled:
Industry-funded trials: 4,585 to 6,550
+43%
NIH-funded trials: 1,376 to 1,048
–24%
Source: Ehrhardt S, Appel LJ, Meinert CL. Trends in National Institutes of Health funding for clinical trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov.
JAMA. 2015;314:2566-7.
ASHClinicalNews.org
Long on Shortages
610 (33.9%) of these
shortages were for drugs
used in emergency medicine.
321 were for drugs used as
life-saving interventions or
for high-acuity conditions.
32 of these drugs had no
available substitute.
Though emergency medicine drug shortages fell from 20022007, the number sharply increased by 435% (from 23 to
123) between January 2008 and March 2014.
Source: Hawley KL, Mazer-Amirshahi M, Zocchi MS, et al. Longitudinal trends
in U.S. drug shortages for medications used in emergency departments
(2001–2014). Acad Emerg Med. 2015 December 30. [Epub ahead of print]
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