Prescription Drugs

Development of novel antimicrobials has slowed, and the preclinical and clinical pipeline is likely to be insufficient to support current and future patient needs.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to negotiate prices directly with participating manufacturers for selected drugs that have high total spending and are high expenditure, single source drugs without generic or biosimilar competition.

The market for antimicrobial (AM) drugs is unique in that it is associated with a positive externality (public health) as well as a negative externality (antimicrobial resistance, or AMR) (Mossialos, et al., 2010). AMR occurs when microbes change over time and no longer respond to available medicine.

In 2017, at least 2.8 million people in the U.S. acquired serious infections with bacteria that are resistant to one or more antimicrobial drugs and 35,000 have died as a result. Resistance to antimicrobials is viewed as a global threat with antimicrobial drug use in human and animal health driving resistance.

Introduction

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will make key changes to improve drug affordability for people who have Medicare.

Prescription drug shortages are an ongoing concern in the United States (U.S.). While prior analyses explore the frequency of drug shortages in the U.S., little is known about the extent to which U.S. shortages impact consumer costs and healthcare systems. Drug shortages impact consumer costs in various ways.

This issue brief provides a primer on FDA user fees, presents findings of how user fees affect the cost of medical product development, and summarizes the research literature on user fees, most notably in expediting medical product development and approval.

Effective January 1, 2023, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) eliminated enrollee cost-sharing for recommended vaccines covered under Medicare Part D. In 2021, 3.4 million people received vaccines under Part D, and annual out-of-pocket costs were $234 million.

This report examines the utilization of oral antiviral medications, Paxlovid and Lagevrio, for the treatment of COVID-19. The analyses include an examination of time trends of COVID-19 antiviral use as well as breakdowns by age cohorts and gender. The report finds that utilization in the U.S.