By Angela Maas
Almost 5.8 billion prescriptions were dispensed in the United
States in 2018, an increase of 2.7% over the previous year, according to the
IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science’s report Medicine Use and Spending in
the U.S.: A Review of 2018 and Outlook to 2023.
Retail and mail pharmacies dispensed 127 million specialty
prescriptions last year, an increase of 15 million since 2014. In 2018, for the
second year in a row, specialty prescription volume grew more than 5% although
the medicines accounted for only 2.2% of prescriptions overall. With an
increase in the availability of oral and self-injected specialty therapies,
these drugs “are increasingly dispensed through retail pharmacies,” said Murray
Aitken, executive director of the institute, during a May 6 press call.
Researchers found that there has been rapid uptake of the
programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) and programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1)
inhibitors. In 2014, following the FDA approval of Merck & Co., Inc.’s
Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in September, there were 2,403 people treated with an
immuno- oncology checkpoint inhibitor. That number rose to 212,473 in 2018,
with six products on the market boasting numerous indications.
The use of biosimilars — which the institute defines on a
broader basis than only those therapies approved through the 351(k) pathway —
“in terms of volume is still modest,” said Aitken, with these therapies
representing less than 2% of the total biologics market in 2018. But in those
areas where a biosimilar is available, “there is reasonably rapid uptake.”
From
RADAR on Specialty Pharmacy
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