New Drugs Boost Pharmacy Sales
By John Hendren
AP Business Writer
Sunday, August 30, 1998; 2:26 p.m. EDT
NEW YORK (AP) -- Americans are stocking their medicine chests faster
this year amid an explosion of new drugs from toenail fungus remedies to
Viagra.
The number of prescription drugs Americans take will rise an estimated 6
percent in 1998 from 1997, based on sales during the first six months of
this year, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores reported Sunday.
Consumers will pick up 2.8 billion prescriptions this year -- more than 11
for every man, woman and child in the United States, the group said.
Pharmacists, drug makers and consumer groups attribute the rise to an
aging population, a jump in advertising, a rise in managed care prescribing
and a change in Medicare rules that expands drug coverage.
And, as much as any other factor, experts cite an array of new drugs as
federal regulators speed up approvals.
That was the case for Chantal Kerveadou. Three years ago, the
34-year-old Manhattanite took only insulin for her diabetes. Now she
takes 19 drugs in 52 doses each day -- or 228 monthly prescriptions a
year.
Some of the drugs she now takes -- like Regrenex, a foot ulcer drug by
Johnson & Johnson's Ortho McNeil Pharmaceutical unit -- weren't on the
market last year.
''I know it's a lot of prescriptions, but each one is to treat or prevent
something. Hopefully, little by little, I'll be able to come off them,'' said
Ms. Kerveadou, whose diabetes left her legally blind and recovering from
a stroke and a kidney transplant. ''I can feel that they're working for me.''
Other patients are taking new ''lifestyle'' drugs -- everything from Viagra
for impotence to Sporanox for toenail fungus, which Public Citizen
consumer advocate Larry Sasich calls ''the new self-esteem disorder of
the 1990s.''
''Viagra has brought a lot of people out of the woodwork who would not
have been treated'' in the past, said Doug Long, a vice president at drug
industry research company IMS Health.
Just as important, many managed care insurers are paying for the drugs, as
patients press for greater coverage and the federal Medicare program
entices the elderly into managed care plans by offering prescription
benefits not available to them under standard Medicare coverage.
That can get expensive, as Oxford Health Plans, United Healthcare and
other insurers who say they are losing money on Medicare HMOs in
some regions are finding out. Kaiser refused to pay for Viagra after
calculating that providing the $10-a-pill drug alone could cost $50 million
a year. Some cholesterol-lowering pills cost $1,000 a year and are meant
to be taken for life.
Nevertheless, new drugs are sometimes the only game in town.
''When there's nothing on the market, there's no competition, so they can
come in with a premium price for their drug,'' said Elaine Manieri, a
pharmaceutical consultant at Sevon associates in Fairless Hills, Pa.
A new class of painkillers called cox-2 inhibitors, for instance, are
expected to cost about $5 a pill, compared with a quarter or less for
aspirin, ibuprofen and the other pills they replace.
In some cases, doctors are accused of being too aggressive in prescribing
drugs. Scientists are banding together to combat a global problem of
antibiotic-resistance that they attribute to excessive prescribing. Up to 40
percent of antibiotics prescribed for various respiratory and ear ailments
are inappropriate, said microbiologist Gail Cassell, vice president of Eli
Lilly & Co.
''There's a lot of overprescribing,'' Public Citizen's Sasich said. ''For
instance, sometimes drugs are prescribed to defeat the adverse effects of
other drugs.''
Drug makers counter that paying for pricey prescriptions is often more
cost-efficient than paying for hospital stays that might otherwise become
necessary.
''Prescription medications really are the most cost-effective, least invasive
form of treatment,'' said Alan F. Holmer, president of the nation's largest
drug industry trade group, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of
America.
Drug buying is also influenced by a dramatic rise in advertising by drug
companies. Drug makers who once advertised only to doctors are now
expected to spend $1.3 billion in 1998 -- a 50 percent increase over last
year, according to IMS Health. Patients' requests for specific brand-name
drugs are up 59 percent, the group said.
''The drugs that are constantly advertised -- like (allergy medicines)
Claritin and Allegra -- those are the drugs that are most asked-for by
patients when they come into the physician's office,'' Ms. Manieri said.
c Copyright 1998 The Associated Press |
