Exclusive: Drugmakers set to raise US prices on at least 500 drugs in January

10 PER CENT OR BELOW

Drugmakers have largely kept increases at 10 per cent or below – an industry practice followed by many big players since they came under fire for too many price hikes in the middle of the last decade.

Even high rates of inflation have not inspired drugmakers to speed up their price increases on already-launched products.

Ciaccia said he had assumed last year that because of inflation, paired with concerns about the US drug price negotiation plan in the IRA, “you would see the proverbial pedal to the metal. But basically, the last five years have been the same”.

Median price increases have hovered at around 5 per cent since 2019, according to data from 46brooklyn, a drug pricing non-profit that is related to 3 Axis.

For at least the second year in a row, Pfizer has announced the most January price increases, accounting for more than a quarter of all the drugs with hikes planned. The New York-based drugmaker will increase prices on 124 unique drug brands, and put an additional increase on 22 drug brands at its Hospira arm.

Takeda-owned Baxalta announced the second-highest number of price increases, with 53 hikes planned so far, followed by Belgian drugmaker UCB Pharma, which intends to raise prices on 40 unique drugs.

Sanofi, which pledged to cut 2024 prices on most of its prescribed insulin products earlier this year, notably will raise prices on its typhoid fever, rabies and yellow fever vaccines each by 9 per cent in January.

More drug prices are likely to be announced over the course of January – historically the biggest month for drugmakers to raise prices.

In 2023, drugmakers raised prices on 1,425 drugs, down from 2022, when they raised prices on 1,460 drugs, according to data published by 46brooklyn.

While drugmakers have pared back their price increases for established drugs, prices for newly launched drugs have hit record levels.

In 2022, the price of newly launched drugs topped US$220,000 from around US$180,000 in the first six months of 2021 suggesting a more than 20 per cent increase. That’s in line with a JAMA-published study on drug prices which showed that between 2008 and 2021 US drug launch prices grew 20 per cent annually.