Drug price hikes without new evidence upped spending by $1.2B

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) published its second-ever report on Unsupported Price Increases (UPI) last week, compiled from data supplied by SSR Health, which is part of the investment research firm SSR.

While the medical pricing watchdog found that overall spending was down from the previous year, the report highlighted 10 drugs whose prices increased. Further, it found that seven of these had price hikes that did not correspond with any newly discovered clinical benefit. ICER estimates that patients, insurers and pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs) were overcharged $1.2 billion in 2019, alone. Read more here.

(Source: Khadua Silver; Med City News; 1/21/21)