All Articles In 'Drug Pricing and Costs'

Compounded Drugs: Congress Takes an Interest in Growing Compound Drug Industry

Compounded Drugs: Congress Takes an Interest in Growing Compound Drug Industry

Compounded drugs are a new hot issue in the pharmaceuticals industry and in Congress. There are little data about compounding pharmacies, but a new Congressional Research Service brief gives a comprehensive overview. Compounded Drugs Personalize Drug [...]

Federal Prescription Drug Pricing: Price Differences Between the VA and DoD

Federal Prescription Drug Pricing: Price Differences Between the VA and DoD

The prices of generic drugs vs. brand-name drugs has gathered a lot of attention lately. But buying in bulk and purchasing practices can have as much of an effect on prices as drug patents do.  That’s [...]

Medicaid Prescription Drugs: Utilization in Medicaid Health Plans and Medicaid Fee-for-Service

Medicaid Prescription Drugs: Utilization in Medicaid Health Plans and Medicaid Fee-for-Service

What’s the impact on patient care, particularly prescription drug utilization, as Medicaid beneficiaries move from fee-for-service to Medicaid health plans?  This year, state Medicaid programs will spend over $22.1 billion on pharmacy benefits. This will grow to [...]

Medicare Drug Benefit: Formulary Oversight in Medicare Part D

Medicare Drug Benefit: Formulary Oversight in Medicare Part D

Medicare Part D, the Medicare drug benefit, served roughly 31 million seniors last year. Medicare Part D is more similar to Medicare Advantage than to traditional Medicare in that enrollees can choose among several private health [...]

Prescription Drugs: A Look at Pharmacy Services Administrative Organizations

Prescription Drugs: A Look at Pharmacy Services Administrative Organizations

Independent pharmacies play a central role in the U.S. prescription drug market, distributing almost one in five drugs sold in the country. But small pharmacies often do not have the resources to handle the administrative burden [...]

5 Causes of Wasteful Health Care Spending

5 Causes of Wasteful Health Care Spending

A painful fact about the U.S. health system is that roughly one third of health costs and spending are wasted. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that wasted health spending [...]

State Tort Liability for Generic Prescription Drugs: SCOTUS Pharma and Biotech Case Previews

State Tort Liability for Generic Prescription Drugs: SCOTUS Pharma and Biotech Case Previews

Generic drugs have operated under a different set of rules than brand-name drugs since 1984, when Congress passed the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, or Hatch-Waxman Act. Brand-name drug manufacturers must [...]

Legality of Pay for Delay Settlements: SCOTUS Pharma and Biotech Case Preview

Legality of Pay for Delay Settlements: SCOTUS Pharma and Biotech Case Preview

The 2012 Supreme Court got a lot of attention for its decision to uphold most of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health reform law in NFIB v. Sebelius. But this year’s court docket will be no [...]

Medicare Part D Spending: Key Drivers of Reduced Drug Benefit Costs

Medicare Part D Spending: Key Drivers of Reduced Drug Benefit Costs

When Congress enacted the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA), it set a spending target of about $400 billion over 10 years for the Medicare Part D drug benefit, after accounting for revenues from premiums and [...]

Global Use and Spending on Prescription Drugs and Biologics: Outlook though 2016

Global Use and Spending on Prescription Drugs and Biologics: Outlook though 2016

As patents on brand-name drugs expire, and generic drug use increases, the United States, Europe, and Japan will account for a smaller share of worldwide spending on prescription drugs, a report from IMS Institute for Healthcare [...]