IMS health study: U.S. drug spending growth reaches 8.5 percent in 2015

Total spending on medicines in the U.S. reached $310 billion in 2015 on an estimated net price basis, up 8.5 percent from the previous year, according to a new report issued today by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. The surge of new medicines remained strong last year and demand for recently launched brands maintained historically high levels. The savings from branded medicines facing generic competition were relatively low in 2015, and the impact of price increases on brands was limited due to higher rebates and price concessions from manufacturers. Specialty drug spending reached $121 billion on a net price basis, up more than 15 percent from 2014.

The study - Medicines Use and Spending in the U.S.: A Review of 2015 and Outlook to 2020 - found that longer-term trends continued to play out last year, driven by the Affordable Care Act and ongoing response to rising overall healthcare costs. Increasingly, healthcare is being delivered by different types of healthcare professionals and from different facilities, while patients face higher out-of-pocket costs and access barriers. The outlook for medicine spending through 2020 is for mid-single digit growth, driven by clusters of innovative treatments and offset by the rising impact of brands facing generic or biosimilar competition.

Total spending on an invoice price basis - without adjusting for the impact of estimated rebates and other price concessions - reached $425 billion in 2015, up 12.2 percent over 2014 levels. Invoice prices for branded medicines rose 12.4 percent in 2015, compared with 14.3 percent in the prior year. Heightened competition among manufacturers, along with more aggressive efforts by health plans and pharmacy benefit managers to limit price growth, resulted in concessions that reduced price increases on an estimated net basis to 2.8 percent, significantly lower than in prior years.

"The challenge of balancing access and the cost of care in an era of innovative but more expensive treatments continues as a theme across our healthcare system," said Murray Aitken, IMS Health senior vice president and executive director of the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. "The level of price concessions achieved in 2015 points to a shift in market dynamics as manufacturers accept lower price increases on existing products. At the same time, spending on new brands continued at near-historic levels."

The report's key findings include the following:

• Total spending on medicines. In 2015, spending net of off-invoice discounts and rebates reached $309.5 billion and grew 8.5 percent year over year. Growth moderated about 2 percentage points from the 2014 level, when total spending was at its highest since 2001. The increase in 2015 spending of $24.3 billion on a net basis and $46.2 billion on an invoice basis was fueled by new brands and protected brand price increases, offset by the impact of patent expiries. The greater use of generics and a small increase in demand for branded drugs contributed to the spending growth.
• Growth in specialty drugs. Spending on specialty medicines has nearly doubled in the past five years, contributing more than two-thirds of overall medicine spending growth between 2010 and 2015. Increased specialty spending was driven primarily by treatments for hepatitis, autoimmune diseases and oncology, which accounted for $19.3 billion in incremental spending. Overall, 2015 saw a 21.5 percent spending increase for specialty medicines to $150.8 billion on an invoice price basis.
• Transformative new medicines. A total of 43 New Active Substances (NASs) was launched in 2015, a third of those receiving orphan drug designations from the FDA. An additional 30 brands were launched last year, bringing new combination therapies, alternative dosing and treatment administration options to patients. The strong momentum of breakthroughs and R&D productivity is reflected in the 2015 cohort of new medicines. Among last year's launches, the number of non-orphan drugs with new mechanisms of action reached 14, double the number in 2014. Among the 2015 NAS launches were notable advances in precision medicines, rare disease therapeutics and chronic disease medicines that could benefit large populations.
• Prescription volume growth. Total prescriptions dispensed in 2015 reached 4.4 billion, up 1 percent year over year. Demand was higher in some therapy areas such as antidepressants and anti-diabetes, each of which increased about 10 percent in 2015. Among those therapy areas that declined, narcotic drugs saw a 16.6 percent drop in the number of prescriptions dispensed. Provisions under the Affordable Care Act for coverage to the uninsured through Medicaid expansion and Health Exchange Plans (HIX) have been the leading drivers of retail prescription growth in the past two years. At the same time, growth in Medicare Part D subscriptions has slowed, and the number of retail prescriptions filled through commercial plans (excluding HIX) and for cash have declined.
• Patient cost exposure. The average patient cost exposure for brand prescriptions filled through a commercial plan has increased more than 25 percent since 2010, reaching $44 per prescription last year. The increased prevalence of health plans with pharmacy deductibles, co-payments and co-insurance is contributing to the rise. In response, brand manufacturers are steadily increasing their use of mechanisms such as coupons or vouchers to help patients offset these expenses. Within the diabetes market, for example, coupons are being used by patients in commercial plans to reduce their costs. Of those diabetes patients facing $50 or more per prescription, about half were able to reduce their out-of-pocket cost to zero in 2015. The average patient cost exposure for generics has remained at approximately $8 per prescription since 2010.
• Healthcare delivery changes. Over the past five years, Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) have expanded their affiliations with healthcare professionals (HCPs) in an effort to increase negotiating power with insurers, leverage economies of scale and drive pay-for-performance initiatives. More than 54 percent of all HCPs nationally now are affiliated with IDNs. Newer facility types addressing patient access and convenience, such as urgent care centers and pharmacy in-store clinics, have grown by 115 percent in the past five years, and are part of an increasingly diverse set of healthcare facilities. The number of prescriptions written by Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants more than doubled over the past 5 years, reaching 676 million prescriptions in 2015.
• 2020 growth forecast. U.S. spending on medicines on a net price basis is expected to reach $370-400 billion in 2020, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 4-7 percent. This growth will reflect increased spending on innovative medicines, offset by lower spending on brands that will lose market exclusivity over the next five years. While brand price increases are expected to continue in the 10-12 percent range on an invoice basis, they will be significantly offset by rebates, discounts and other forms of price concessions. The prospects for additional innovative medicines becoming available for patients through 2020 are very bright. The late-phase pipeline holds 2,320 novel products, and an average 43-49 NASs are expected to be launched annually over the next five years.

The full version of the report, including a detailed description of the methodology, is available at www.theimsinstitute.org. It can also be downloaded as an app via iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/app/ims-institute/id625347542.The study was produced independently as a public service, without industry or government funding.

In this release, "spending on medicines" and "invoice-price spending" refer to the amounts paid to distributors by their pharmacy or hospital customers. It does not relate directly to either the out-of-pocket costs paid by a patient or the amount health plans pay for the medicines, and does not include mark-ups and additional costs associated with dispensing or other services associated with medicines reaching patients. "Net-price spending" is an alternative measure that is an estimate of the amount received by pharmaceutical manufacturers and therefore reflects rebates, off-invoice discounts and other price concessions made by manufacturers to distributors, health plans and intermediaries.

Analyses conducted for the report are based on IMS Health information resources and focus on prescription-bound products, including Insulins that are available without a prescription. OTC products are excluded from the report. Spending figures are derived from IMS National Sales Perspectives™ and reported at wholesaler invoice prices that do not reflect off-invoice discounts and rebates. All analyses in the report are on an invoice price basis unless otherwise specified. Prescription data are derived from IMS National Prescription Audit™, which tracks national prescription trends and activity for all pharmaceutical products. Other IMS Health information resources used in this report include NPA Market Dynamics™, National Prescription Audit™, Xponent™ PlanTrak™, Formulary Impact Analyzer™, Market Prognosis™, Healthcare Organizational and Professional Services™ and IMS MIDAS™. More detail on information sources is included in the report.