4 key facts on medicine prices and spending

This week, policymakers on Capitol Hill will continue to discuss the cost of lifesaving medicines and how to make them more affordable for Americans. It’s an important discussion that the biopharmaceutical industry believes we need to have. A new treatment or cure can’t improve a patient’s life if they can’t get it. As the conversation continues in Congress, IQVIA is out with a new and timely report on medicine prices and spending. Here are four key facts from IQVIA that are important to keep in mind:

1. Net prices for brand medicines stayed flat (0.0% growth) on average in 2022. This is the 5th consecutive year net prices — the prices that reflect significant rebates, discounts and other payments to insurers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and others — grew below the rate of inflation. 

2. List prices grew below the rate of inflation — growing just 3.7%, on average — for the 2nd year in a row. Looking ahead, the average change in list price growth is projected to be 0% to 3% per year through 2027.

3. Brand medicine net prices are 50% lower than their list price, on average. Yet patients are often forced to pay the full list price, while insurers and PBMs get the discounted price.

4. Savings to the health care system from competition and expiring patent protections totaled $83 billion between 2017 and 2022, essentially offsetting the amount spent on new, innovative medicines launched over that same period. Competition in the system is working.

Unfortunately, these facts don’t always reflect the reality that many patients are facing at the pharmacy counter. As insurers and PBMs shift more of the costs of medicines onto patients through high deductibles, patients struggle to afford their out-of-pocket costs. That’s why it’s important for policymakers to pass strong reforms that hold insurers and PBMs accountable and lower costs for patients.

Learn more at PhRMA.org/Cost