Top 9 Drugs With the Biggest Price Increases Over 2 Years

Nine widely-used medications have experienced substantial price surges over the past 2 years, adding $5.1 billion to overall drug spending during this time period, according to a new report.

The authors of the report, the Institute of Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) claimed 7 of the 9 drugs were lacking sufficient clinical evidence to support such price increases, but several pharmaceutical manufacturers took issue with the methodology used in the analysis.

Of the drugs listed, the ICER indicated that lenalidomide and dimethyl fumarate were the only 2 with new clinical evidence. In appendix published with the report, however, several manufacturers challenged ICER's methodology and findings. For example, the assessment only includes indications representing greater than 10% of use, not accounting for smaller indications such as rare diseases that may reflect improvements in net health benefit. 

The World's Pharma Lords: Which Countries Buy & Sell the Most Drugs?

The pharmaceutical industry is incredibly valuable and is continuing to grow. But just how much of the world’s imports and exports involve pharmaceuticals? To understand the impact of the pharmaceutical industry on the world’s economy, we created two visualizations to demonstrate pharmaceutical imports and exports by country in 2018.

   The United States is, by far, the world’s biggest importer of pharmaceuticals at $99.7 billion. As the opioid crisis in the United States carries on, pharmaceutical companies are being scrutinized, as was demonstrated in the Johnson and Johnson settlement.