Drug Costs Top $50K A Year For Half Million Americans: Forbes

Summary: “With the drug industry launching more expensive targeted therapies, the number of Americans with annual medication costs of more than $50,000 has jumped more than 60% to nearly 600,000, a new analysis shows,” Bruce Japsen writes at Forbes. “The latest drug spending trend report from pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts … shows 576,000 Americans with annual medication costs of $50,000 or more. That’s a 63% increase in 2014 from 2013 when 352,000 Americans had such high costs. While the number of patients with annual spending above $50,000 was just 0.2% of patients, the amount of drugs they and their health plans or employers paid for accounted for 16% of total spending, the analysis showed.” Drug Costs Top $50K A Year For Half Million Americans – Forbes.