Estimated Savings From International Reference Pricing for Prescription Drugs

Abstract

This study estimates what 2020 national US savings would have been using international reference pricing rather than US manufacturer and net prices for insulins and 50 top brand-name drugs.

Figure 1.. Aggregated Spending on Prescription Drugs at US Manufacturer, US Net, and International Prices

Analysis of SSR Health US net sales and IQVIA MIDAS sales at manufacturer prices and volume data for the US and 6 HR 3 countries. The analysis is limited to insulins (10 SSR Health products) and 50 select single-source, brand-name drugs (including 2 SSR Health products assigned to the anticoagulant class, 4 noninsulin diabetes drugs, 4 HIV drugs, 4 psoriasis drugs, 5 disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, 15 oncology drugs, and 16 other drugs).

Figure 2.. Product-Level Percent Changes in Spending at 2020 US Volume and Different Prices

The analysis was limited to 10 insulin products and 50 other select single-source, brand-name drugs. Vertical lines through the solid boxes represent medians, the widths of the solid boxes mark the IQR, the whiskers represent adjacent values, which are defined as the largest and smallest data points within 1.5 times the IQR, and dots indicate points that fall beyond the whiskers.