2009 Drug Trend Insights - Prime Therapeutics

Strategic approach to Pharmacy trends+ Blood modifiersOngoing concerns about thesafety of category leaders Epogen ® ,Procrit ® , and Aranesp ® havedriven down utilization andreduced total PMPM for thesedrugs. This trend is expectedto continue going forward.+ Hepatitis CTotal PMPM has been trendingdown for several years, drivenby decreasing utilization. Thisis likely the result of patientscompleting the course oftreatment; effective educationand prevention campaigns havealso reduced the number of newdiagnoses in recent years.Specialty pharmacy medicationsaccounted for 25 percent of allU.S. pharmacy spend in 2008. 50 By2011, industry experts project thatnumber to increase to 30 percent,totaling $99 billion in Specialtypharmacy spend. 51 New drugs andexpanded uses for existing Specialtydrugs will drive these cost increases.Fig 30 New drug launches: 1998–2008Number of launches50401630 1511152013252222101711Over the past 10 years, themomentum for developing newtraditional drugs has graduallygiven way to heightened interestand investment in Specialty drugdevelopment. In 2008, approvalsfor Specialty drugs outnumberedtraditional drugs by nearly threeto one (fig 30). 5291421 226 1214611 12TraditionalSpecialty7191998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008Source: FDA, IMS Health, Jan 2009© Prime Therapeutics 2009 Drug Trend Insights51