PRESCRIPTION DRUGS Studies find prices are soaring

Last year, Lipitor's price rose 5.5 times the rate of inflation, excluding energy.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- Prices for the prescription drugs taken most often by older Americans continue to increase at several times the rate of inflation, according to two studies released Tuesday.
A spokesman for the drug industry said the rising costs were in line with the higher rate of inflation for U.S. health care in general. A spokesman for one of the studies accused drug makers of profiteering.
The findings come one week before the June 1 implementation of a new Medicare-approved prescription-drug discount card program. The studies suggest that increases in drug prices will offset substantially the savings projected for seniors who use the cards.
The Public Policy Institute at AARP, the seniors advocacy group, found that wholesale prices for drugs most often prescribed for Americans age 50 and over increased an average of 27.6 percent from 2000 through 2003. In the same period, inflation increased only 10.4 percent. The study included the top 197 drugs.
Advocacy group study
A separate study by Families USA, a Washington-based patient advocacy group, found that prices of the 30 drugs prescribed most often to people 65 and over increased 6.5 percent last year. Inflation in 2003 -- excluding energy costs -- was 1.5 percent. Including energy prices, it was 1.9 percent.
For its figures, Families USA relied on the drug makers' recommended retail prices.
Families USA, in summarizing the last three years of its annual findings, found that the top-selling drug among seniors, Lipitor, which lowers cholesterol, increased in price by 27 percent from January 2001 to January 2004. The second most-prescribed drug for seniors, Plavix, which prevents blood clots, rose by 34.8 percent over the same period.
Of the 30 drugs that Families USA studied, 14 rose by at least five times the inflation rate. The top five drugs prescribed for seniors were also fast risers last year, the Families USA study found.
Last year, Lipitor's price increased 8.3 percent or about 5.5 times the inflation rate excluding energy prices, Families USA found. Plavix rose 7.9 percent, 5.3 times faster than inflation; Fosamax, which treats osteoporosis, jumped 6.9 percent, 4.6 times the inflation rate; Norvasc, a high blood pressure medication, rose 9.9 percent, 6.6 times the inflation rate; and Celebrex, an arthritis drug, increased 8.1 percent last year, 5.4 times the rate of inflation.
Hits seniors hard
That's bad news for older Americans and seniors, who spend more for prescription drugs than other age groups.
"If these price increases continue indefinitely, they will be going up much faster than people's ability to pay," said John Rother, AARP policy director. "We've got to keep this thing affordable."
Ron Pollack, the executive director of Families USA, shared Rother's outlook.
"The benefit of a discount [card] will be eroded or negated by these significant increases in base prices," Pollack said. "We have every expectation that these increases will continue next year and in the following years."
Pollack attributed the increases to drug companies' trying to maximize profits. "They clearly think the sky's the limit," he said.