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June 21, 2017

Report: Generic drugs saved CT $2.9B in 2016

By John Stearns

Savings from generic prescription drugs totaled $2.9 billion for Connecticut last year, according to a new report compiled by third-party researchers on behalf of the Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM).

AAM advocates for policies to increase pharmaceutical competition to ensure more generic and biosimilar medicines are more accessible to people who need them.

According to the ninth annual Generic Drug Access & Savings in the U.S. report, generic drugs saved Connecticut $529 million in Medicaid expense, $851 million in Medicare, $125 million for cash, or noninsured customers, and $1.5 billion for the commercial insured.

This year’s report for the first time analyzed the difference between brand and generic abandonment behaviors, or whether patients who request a prescription at the pharmacy pick it up.

New patient abandonment rates for brand-name drugs are 266 percent higher than for generic drugs, the report says, adding that costs play a significant role in abandonment.

Generic drugs have saved the U.S. healthcare system $1.67 trillion in the last decade, generating $253 billion in savings in 2016 alone, according to the study. Medicare savings amounted to $77 billion with savings of $1,883 per enrollee and Medicaid savings of $37.9 billion with savings of $512 per enrollee.

Generics make up 89 percent of prescriptions dispensed but 26 percent of total medicine spending, the report said. So brand drugs are 11 percent of prescriptions and responsible for 74 percent of drug costs, it said.

The most savings from generic drugs were found in mental health ($44 billion), hypertension ($29 billion) and cholesterol ($28 billion) treatments, the report said.

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