Escalating drug costs pose risk to seniors: study

NEW YORK, Jun 12 (Reuters Health) - The prices for medications that senior citizens rely on most rose at more than double the rate of inflation last year, according to the results of a study by Families USA.

With no relief in sight from escalating drug prices, the consumer advocacy group suggests that senior citizens on fixed incomes may be forced to make dangerous, or even life-threatening, choices.

"Older Americans live on fixed incomes, like Social Security and pensions, and yet the prices of their prescriptions are skyrocketing at multiples of inflation," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. "These price increases cannot be justified and are marking prescription medicines unaffordable for too many seniors," he said.

On average, the prices of the top 50 drugs used by older Americans rose 6.1% over a 12-month period ending in January 2001, the study found. That compares with an inflation rate, excluding the cost of energy, of 2.7%.

Thirty-eight of the top-selling drugs on the list rose at least 1.5 times the rate of inflation. More than one-third rose three or more times the rate of inflation.

The biggest price jumpers included Knoll's synthetic thyroid agent Synthroid, up 22.6%, or more than eight times the rate of inflation over the 1-year period; Allergan's glaucoma drug Alphagan, which rose 22.5%; and Bristol-Myers Squibb's diabetes medication Glucophage, increasing 15.5%, or nearly six times inflation.

Over a 5-year period beginning January 1996, the prices of medications that seniors used most often rose an average of 22.2%, or nearly twice the rate of inflation during that period.

Of the 50 drugs in the study, seniors' average annual cost per prescription was $956. Drugs with the highest average annual cost included Searle's anti-inflammatory drug Celebrex, at $1,837; Merck's cholesterol-lowering agent Zocor, at $1,520; and Astra Zeneca's gastrointestinal drug Prilosec, at $1,511.

The report is based on data from the Pennsylvania Pharmaceutical Assistance Contract for the Elderly, the largest outpatient prescription drug program in the US.

Using claims data from 2000, the PRIME Institute at the University of Minnesota developed a list of the top-selling prescription drugs used by older Americans and ranked them by the number of prescriptions used. Annual price increases for top-selling prescription drugs were weighted to reflect the percentage of a drug's total sales of all drugs on the list for a given year.

"For seniors paying for their drugs out-of-pocket, the steady escalation in these costs puts them at risk of being unable to obtain the prescription drugs they need to maintain their health," the report concludes.