Leading therapy areas for U.S. drug spending 2020

Medications can be categorized by the type of condition they are used to treat. In 2020, sales of antidiabetic drugs in the United States amounted to approximately 74 billion U.S. dollars, which was only topped by immunology.

High demand for drugs to treat high blood pressure

Approximately 6.3 billion prescriptions (adjusted for prescription legth) were dispensed in the United States in 2020. The therapeutic class with the most prescriptions was antihypertensives, which are effective in lowering blood pressure. Sales of antihypertensives generated around 7.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2019, representing just a 1.5 percent share of the total amount of money spent on medicines in the United States during the year.

Counting the cost of diabetes

The number of prescriptions dispensed for the use of antidiabetics stood at 217 million in 2020; spending on antidiabetic medicines increased over the last few years to 74 billion U.S. dollars during 2020. One reason for this could be a rise in the price of diabetes medications. When drug manufacturers own the patent to certain medicines, they can sell the product at a higher price because there is a lack of competition in the market. Prices start to fall when this market exclusivity ends, and generic versions enter the market.