Amid national turmoil over rising drug costs, a new report finds that spending on prescription medicines in the U.S. last year grew a modest 0.6 percent, to $324 billion, after accounting for rebates and discounts that are paid by drug makers. And real net per-capita spending fell by 2.2 percent, when adjusted for those allowances, as well as for population and economic growth.
The rebates and discounts mean that drug makers are realizing less revenue than the stated list prices for their medicines. The difference last year was $130 billion, up from $74 billion, according to data from the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science, which is part of the IQVIA market research firm. List prices, meanwhile, rose a modest 1.4 percent.
At the same time, the growth in net spending slowed to approximately $700 million last year, down dramatically from $12.1 billion in 2016. Sales of new brand-name drugs contributed $2.3 billion less growth and generics declined by $5.5 billion. These medicines contributed less to the sales growth because price increases were lower last year than in 2016, both before and after rebates and discounts.
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