NEW YORK TIMES: …Determined to slow the rapid rise in drug prices, more health plans are refusing to cover certain drugs unless the companies charge less for them.
The strategy appears to be getting pharmaceutical makers to compete on price. Some big-selling products, like the respiratory medicine Advair and the diabetes drug Victoza, have suffered precipitous declines in market share because Express Scripts, the biggest pharmacy benefits manager, recently stopped paying for them for many patients…
Spending on specialty drugs rose 14.1 percent last year and by even greater amounts in previous recent years, according to Express Scripts. Most of that increased spending comes not from new drugs or new patients, but from price increases on older drugs that can often exceed 10 percent year after year… (more)
But, are health insurers pressing down on research too? Knowing revenues will be declining it is likely research investment will be declining.
EDITOR: If that is our legitimate concern, we should all agree to pay more for our insurance so that health insurers will do more research. Actually, much if not a majority of the research is publicly funded.