Spe­cial­ty drug mar­ket jumps, dri­ven by new users — not high­er price tags — and more biosim­i­lar up­take

The pre­scrip­tion spe­cial­ty drug mar­ket is re­bound­ing from a pan­dem­ic dip which isn’t sur­pris­ing, but what’s dri­ving it may be. A re­cent an­nu­al spend­ing and trend re­port found that in­creased up­take of spe­cial­ty drugs by pa­tients, not drug price in­creas­es, is fu­el­ing the growth.

Of the 14.2% over­all in­crease tracked in 2021, 9.4% was at­trib­uted to in­creased use with the re­main­ing 4.4% lift as­cribed to in­creased drug prices, ac­cord­ing to Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Strate­gies Group’s sixth an­nu­al Artemetrx State of Spe­cial­ty Spend and Trend Re­port.

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