Unsupported Price Increases Occurring in 2017-2018

ICER evaluated selected high-impact drugs with substantial price increases. ICER reviewed changes in the evidence base for each of these drugs and assess whether or not new clinical data exists that could suggest that the drugs could be significantly more beneficial for patients than what was previously understood. ICER published the final draft of its first UPI report in October 2019.

In 2017 and 2018, out of nine identified drugs that had substantial price increases on top of already high current spending, seven drugs had no new important evidence to support their price increases. The net price increases on these seven drugs alone cost American insurers and patients an additional $4.8 billion over two years.

Interventions of Interest:

These seven drugs, in order of the impact of their price increases on drug spending in the US, are:

1. Humira® (adalimumab, AbbVie)
2. Lyrica® (pregabalin, Pfizer)
3. Truvada® (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, Gilead)
4. Rituxan® (rituximab, Genentech)*
5. Neulasta® (pegfilgrastim, Amgen)
6. Cialis® (tadalafil, Eli Lilly)
7. Tecfidera® (dimethyl fumarate, Biogen)

ICER’s Chief Medical Officer David Rind, MD, MSc stated:

“The norm in the United States has been for most pharmaceutical manufacturers to increase prices year after year — even accounting for the discounts they give insurers, and even for drugs that already sit at the top of the chart of spending for drugs in the US. The goal of ICER’s new UPI report is to provide the public and policymakers an explicit and independent approach to determine whether price increases could potentially be supported by new clinical evidence. If new evidence emerges that shows a treatment may be more beneficial than what was previously understood, perhaps that new evidence could warrant some level of price increase. For seven of the nine drugs we reviewed, however, we found that the price increases lacked justification in new evidence.”

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