Will Orphan Drug Reimbursement Policies Remain Stable?

As another conference on rare diseases takes place this week in Maryland, a survey finds that orphan drugs may account for a small portion of prescription drug spending, but three quarters of all pharmacy directors are moderately to extremely concerned about the impact these medications have on their overall spending. And slightly more than half are looking at way to mitigate costs. At the same time, many pharmacy directors were unable to estimate the number of patients using orphan drugs, 40 percent do not use metrics to gauge the impact usage has on spending, and only 30 percent anticipate any policy changes by 2015 toward these medications – which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars annually per patient. In fact, 40 percent expect stable coverage policy through 2017. Moreover, many pharmacy directors could not estimate outlays and those that could say 6.4 percent of pharmacy-benefit spending and 4.1 percent of medical benefit spending was for orphan drugs. By contrast, the US Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services estimates prescription drugs comprise 10 percent of the US healthcare budget, suggesting orphan drugs represent only 0.5 percent of US healthcare spending, according to Leerink Swann analyst Joseph Schwartz. As a result, “we continue to believe that a distinction between sticker shock and budget impact deserves to be drawn,” he wrote in an investor note. The investment bank queried 34 pharmacy directors who work at insurers or pharmacy benefit m...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs