Drug costs soaring? Express Scripts says 2018 growth was lowest in 25 years

Express Scripts’ report looked at drugs in the pharmacy benefit and excluded drugs that dispensed in hospitals, long-term care facilities and other healthcare settings that are billed under the medical benefit. This category includes some of the most expensive drugs on the market, including infused cancer drugs, rare disease meds and the recently approved CAR-T treatments. Express Scripts pointed out that one reason for lower costs last year was that many multiple sclerosis patients have switched from Biogen's Tecfidera to Roche's new Ocrevus, which is billed in the medical benefit.

Looking ahead as far as 2021, Express Scripts, now part of Cigna, predicted costs to treat inflammatory conditions will keep climbing this year as biosims aren’t expected to cut costs until 2020.. New oral anticoagulants such as Bristol’s Eliquis and Johnson & Johnson and Bayer’s Xarelto are expected to keep stealing share from generic warfarin, driving spending increases.

On the other side of the coin, Express Scripts expects savings in the pain and inflammation category, partly because of new generics to Pfizer's Lyrica expected halfway through 2019.

Mdeanwhile, drug pricing continues to command center stage in Washington, D.C. This week, five pharma CEOs and a top executive at Johnson & Johnson accepted invites to testify at a Senate hearing later this month. Senators previously requested they testify and held a hearing last week, but none were present. After that, Sen. Ron Wyden tweeted that the executives will testify "one way or another."

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