Likely because I hear them used frequently by marketing folks who are working with pharmaceutical companies to improve their products’ positioning and market share.  Of course the pharma companies want us (the patients) to remain 100% compliant and to adhere to our treatment regimens.  That is part of business and you better bet that MS medications are a big business.

[On a side note: Did you know that you can miss 19% of your doses of medication and still be considered “compliant”?  I recently learned that taking your medication as prescribed 80% of the time is considered “compliant” for research purposes.  Wow.  I would have thought that the percentage needed to be higher.]

Within this drug trend report was information specific to specialty medications such as those used for multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.  In 2010, the amount spent on specialty medications (through the Express Script pharmacy benefit management programs) increased 19.6% as compared to the amount spent in 2009.  The top three disease categories which use specialty medications (inflammatory conditions, multiple sclerosis, and cancer) made up 68.3% of the total amount spent on specialty drugs as compared to 66.7% in 2009 and 63.7% in 2008.  22.9% was spent on MS drugs alone.

The total amount spent on MS medications increased 25.4% from 2009-2010.  The amount had increased 34.4% from 2008-2009 and 18.3% from 2007-2008.  The result is an amount spent in 2010 on MS medications which is double what what spent in 2007.  Double in three years.  If forecasts are correct, the amount spent on MS drugs will more than double again in three years. 

Much of this increase is due to an increase in the price of each medication.  The price for Copaxone was increased 19% according to the 2010 Drug Trend Report, while utilization for MS drugs is actually decreasing slightly.  It is not expected that the introduction of new medications will cause prices to go lower and we’ve seen this already with the introduction of Gilenya in September 2010.  The market response to Gilenya’s $48,000 price tag was an increase in price of other MS medications, not a decrease (see The Rising Price of MS Disease-Modifying Medications)

I just wonder if this racing train will ever slow down.

Lisa Emrich is author of the blog Brass and Ivory: Life with MS and RA and founder of the Carnival of MS Bloggers.