
High Cost Of Diabetes Drugs Often Goes Overlooked
When it comes to treating chronic conditions, diabetes drugs aren't nearly as sexy as say, Sovaldi, last year's breakthrough hepatitis C drug that offers a cure for the chronic liver infection at a price approaching six figures.
Yet an estimated 29 million people in the U.S. have diabetes — about 10 times the number of people with hepatitis C — and many of them will take diabetes drugs for the rest of their lives. Cost increases for both old and new drugs are forcing many to scramble to pay for them.
"Every week I see patients who can't afford their drugs," says Dr. Joel Zonszein, an endocrinologist who's director of the clinical diabetes center at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.
Although some of the top-selling diabetes drugs like metformin are modestly priced generics, new brand-name drugs continue to be introduced that act in different ways to control blood sugar. They may be more effective and have fewer side effects, but the advances come at a price.
For the fourth year in a row, per person spending on diabetes drugs in 2014 was higher than it was for any other class of traditional drug, according to the Express Scripts 2014 drug trend report. Fewer than half of the prescriptions filled for diabetes treatments were generic.
"The cost of diabetes treatment has been increasing pretty rapidly," says Dr. Glen Stettin, senior vice president for clinical, research and new solutions at Express Scripts, which manages the pharmacy benefits for many companies.
An analysis of per capita health care spending in 2013 for people with diabetes found average costs were
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