Drug manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), pharmacist groups, and other health care industry players are all using the draft Medicare drug formulary suggested by the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) Convention for target practice. The USP issued its draft guidelines in mid-August 2004, then held a hearing on them in late August. The organization will publish final [...]
Prescription drugs represent a growing cost in the provision of health care. New drugs are now used in treatments for which older drugs were not developed. In addition, existing drug treatments are being replaced by newer, sometimes more costly, drugs.
We divided new drug introductions into two steps: (1) first-in-class drugs to reach the market and (2) later follow-on drugs in established therapeutic categories (i.e., with previously existing USC codes). In this research, our analysis used two logistic regression models: one for first-in-class drugs and a second for follow-on drugs. First-in-class drugs represent a potentially [...]
We examined the prescribing behavior of 3,646 physicians in relation to the introduction of 32 new drugs on the market from 1997 through 2000. The data reflected writing prescriptions for one drug per physician; the assignment of a particular drug to a physician was determined by leters of the U.S. prescribing physicians, the study population [...]
INTRODUCTION
As total expenditures related to health care grow each year, pharmaceuticals play an ever-increasing role in medical care. Prescription drugs now account for a larger percentage of health care costs than ever before. Physicians remain the gatekeepers to the widespread use of a new drug. Although a fairly large amount of research has focused on [...]
The Sullivan model appears credible, the participants said, in that the mathematical equations did not seem to have been forced into the service of a desired result. Participants felt that this model seems to have been built on conservative, common-sense assumptions that are easily understood. When the user of a model understands that the model [...]
The effect of ADRs on overall treatment costs among SRIs can be substantial. In the model presented during the round-tables, a branded SRI, escitalopram (Lexapro canadian, Forest) incurred the lowest overall expected cost over the course of six months, ahead of another branded SRI, canadian citalopram (Celexa drug, Forest), and a generic SRI, fluoxetine. (Table [...]
