May 2002

Prescription Drug Sales Up 17% in 2001

New York, N.Y. - A recent study has found that demand for high cholesterol medicines and arthritis treatments helped drive U.S. prescription drug spending up 17.1% to $154.5 billion in 2001, Reuters Health reported recently.

Sales of a relatively small number of prescription drugs, including Pfizer, Inc., and Merck & Co., Inc.’s cholesterol fighters Lipitor and Zocor, accounted for the lion’s share of the rise in drug spending, according to the study from the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation.

“We see that the rise in pharmaceutical expenditures is led by the increased use of a relatively small number of expensive drugs,” says Nancy Chockley, president of the NIHCM Foundation, a Washington. D.C.-based non-profit organization that is funded by Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans and grants from the U.S. government and private health-care foundations.

U.S. retail sales of Lipitor, the top-selling drug in 2001, rose 22.3% to $4.5 billion in 2001, while sales of Zocor jumped 24% to $2.7 billion.

Last year was the fourth year in a row that spending on prescription medicines in pharmacies, food and discount stores, and mass merchandisers escalated 17% or more, according to the study. Retail spending on outpatient prescription drugs has nearly doubled from $78.9 billion in 1997.

Rising sales of 50 drugs, out more than 9,000 in the retail market, accounted for 62% of the $22.5 billion increase in retail drug spending in 2001, according to the study. Higher volume and higher costs of prescriptions written also fueled the surge in spending.

Anti-depressants remained the top-selling category of drug in 2001, with sales of $12.5 billion, up 20.2%. Anti-ulcer drugs, led by AstraZeneca Plc’s Prilosec, were the second-biggest sellers as a category, with retail sales of $10.8 billion, up 14.4%.

Other notable sales increases included Merck’s arthritis drug Vioxx, which rose 33.5%, and Wyeth’s ulcer drug Protonix surged 490%. The painkiller OxyContin, made by Purdue Pharma, rose 41%, and the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa rose 28.6%.

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