Remember Daraprim? How about “pharma-bro”? Those were the good ole’ days when you could increase the price of a drug from $13.50 per pill (actually, it started under $1 when Turing acquired it) to $750 per pill and call yourself “Robin Hood.” We all know how this story ended. Martin Shkreli is now serving a seven-year prison term for securities fraud. His appeal to be released from prison to help research a COVID-19 cure was recently denied. The end? Not so fast! Generic Daraprim hit the market in March. meaning competition should bring “bad news” to the legacy brand manufacturer, right? Cheap prices for all, right? Wrong. In our latest Flash Finding, we started digging into the facts. Here’s what you need to know – in under 500 words.
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic pulled the rug out from under our lives, us nerds in the drug pricing world have been anxiously anticipating what its impact on the prescription drug supply chain will be. This week, CMS released its latest monthly round of prescription drug cost information, which gives us our first bits of insight of how the virus and its stresses on the supply chain are impacting generic drug costs. While it’s too early to tell, the first indicators show that prices are slightly moving northwards, but in general, it doesn’t seem close to being the disaster that many anticipated.
For the past few weeks, we have been tracking the number of COVID-19 trials on ClinicalTrials.gov, with specific emphasis on drug trials. As of Tuesday, the week-over-week number of drug trials increased by 101 to a total of 431, and the number of different active ingredients undergoing trials for COVID-19 is now up to 190. When digging into those numbers, we found that the chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine craze appears to have spilled over to the research community, launching 124 trials on these two drugs – a staggering 28% of the total drug trials, as of today.
For the past 20 months, in the pre-COVID-19 era, we’ve released a monthly report called “What’s Happening To Generic Drug Prices,” where we track month-by-month price changes from the CMS National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC) survey of community pharmacy invoice acquisition costs for prescription drugs. This month, we still are providing that update, but in digging through the latest round of drug pricing data from CMS, we spotted some very interesting drug pricing movement on generic drugs, and one massive increase on a drug that was recently being tested for emergency use for treatment of COVID-19 patients. Check out our latest drug pricing report for important updates on the latest drug price changes, plus an updated NADAC Packed Bubble Chart and Abnormal Drug Price Increase Tracker.
COVID-19 has dominated all aspects of American and international life over the past months. As the scope of the disease becomes more apparent by the day, we have begun to monitor the impact that COVID-19 has had on prescription drug prices, and unsurprisingly, there’s been volatility. To facilitate broader investigation into the impact COVID-19, we wanted to share within the public domain the list of national drug codes (NDCs) that included active ingredients currently being investigated in conjunction with COVID-19 according to ClinicalTrials.gov. This new tool will give users the ability to better track prices of drugs that are being evaluated as potential treatments options. Here’s how we did it, and how you can use it.
It’s NADAC survey results week, which means it’s time for our next installment of “what happened to generic drug prices last month.” We saw more price increases than decreases this past month. Also, for the second month in a row, we saw an increase in annualized spending based on typical utilization trends. It is becoming clear that the generic marketplace is not providing the deflation and efficiency that we have become accustomed to in recent years. As always, the details matter, and we’re here to provide them for you. Check out our latest drug pricing report for important updates on the latest generic drug price changes, plus an updated NADAC Packed Bubble Chart.
With most of our generic drugs made in China and India, concerns about drug shortages are naturally rising amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, no amount of data analysis can systematically pinpoint which drugs are at highest risk of shortage. That’s because information on where the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in our drugs are made is kept hidden from public view. We must place our trust in the FDA (who clearly has this information) to do everything in its power to maintain ample supply of critical drugs in this country. But the FDA is not alone in its efforts. All across this country, we have been humbled to witness the tireless efforts of researchers and members of the media who are trying to piece together this drug supply chain puzzle to help identify where potential risks and weak points may lie. We were motivated to help assist these people in their noble efforts. So we wondered, could we use public drug pricing data as a “flashlight” that could help guide the efforts of researchers wandering through the dark and vast interconnectedness of the drug supply chain in hopes of finding information that can help Americans through this crisis? After working through and tossing out many ideas, we settled on two dashboards: A complete rebuild of our drugmaker market share dashboard, and a new dashboard that identifies drugs experiencing abnormal price increases. This report walks through how to use these new tools, and provides warnings on how to use, and how not to use these tools.
It’s NADAC survey results week, which means it’s time for our next installment of “what happened to generic drug prices last month.” We saw more price increases than decreases this past month, and for the first time in eight months, an increase in annualized spending based on typical utilization trends. As always, the details matter, and we’re here to provide them for you. Check out our latest drug pricing report for important updates on the latest generic drug price changes, plus an updated NADAC Packed Bubble Chart.
It’s NADAC survey results week, which means it’s time for our next installment of “what happened to generic drug prices last month.” We saw less price increases than decreases this past month, and an overall decrease in annualized spending based on typical utilization trends. As always, the details matter, and we’re here to provide them for you. Check out our latest drug pricing report for important updates on the latest generic drug price changes, plus an updated NADAC Packed Bubble Chart. Additionally, check out the interesting spike in hydrocodone-acetaminophen prices, which occurred just weeks after the major opioid lawsuit settlements.
