Prescription Drug Trends

Our Drug Trend Report provides the healthcare industry’s most detailed analysis of prescription drug costs and utilization. Our clients — the health plans, employers, unions and government agencies that provide benefits — have a vested interest in tracking how medication costs shift from year to year, and we want to extend this knowledge to consumers and the health community.

Current Prescription Drug Spending
Over the last five years, one pattern has consistently emerged: growth in drug spend has slowed. In 2011, the country spent 2.7% more on prescription drugs than it did in 2011, which is the lowest increase Express Scripts has ever recorded in its eighteen years of tracking the statistic.

Market Factors vs. Behavioral Factors
We’ve divided components of prescription drug spending into two groups: market factors and behavioral factors.

Market factors refer to supply side forces within the prescription market as well as changes in the prevalence of disease. These include:

• Prevalence
• Cost per unit
• Units per prescription
• Patent expirations
• New drugs

Behavioral factors focus on whether patients are taking medications and which medications they are taking. These include:

• Intensity (i.e., adherence)
• Mix (i.e., use of generics vs brand-name drugs)

In this section, we’ll take a closer look at insights from the 2011 Drug Trend Report and discussing what that means for the industry in 2012 and moving forward.