Specialty Drugs and U.S. Health Spending

The $87 billion specialty drug market is growing at twice the rate of the overall prescription market, raising concerns about the drugs’ “financial toxicity” for patients, researchers write in the latest Health Affairs. “The increase in total drug costs to the new agents is likely to have a substantial impact on overall healthcare costs and patients will feel the growing burden through increased insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs,” wrote Duke University’s Bradford Hirsch, Suresh Balu and Kevin Schulman. Drug companies pinched by generic encroachment have an incentive to pursue specialty drug development, they said. For policymakers, the challenge will be to protect patients from crushing costs while encouraging the most efficient use of drugs.

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