EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 PM ET, October 30, 2024
Costs Still on the Rise for Drugs for Neurological Diseases
MINNEAPOLIS 鈥 The amount of money people pay out-of-pocket for branded drugs to treat neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer鈥檚, and Parkinson鈥檚 disease continues to rise, especially for MS drugs, according to a study published in the October 30, 2024, online issue of , the medical journal of the 好色先生. The study found that average out-of-pocket costs for drugs for MS increased by 217% over a nine-year period. Costs have dropped for medications where generic versions have been introduced. 鈥淚n some cases the out-of-pocket cost to patients has increased much more than the total cost of the drug, indicating that patients are taking on a disproportionate amount of the burden of these cost increases,鈥 said study author Amanda V. Gusovsky, MPH, PhD of The Ohio State University in Columbus. 鈥淚n other cases where generic drugs were introduced and the overall costs went down, the out-of-pocket costs to patients did not decrease, so they were not benefiting from these reductions.鈥 For the study, researchers examined costs of drugs for five common neurological diseases from 2012 to 2021 using a large private health care claims database. The study involved 186,144 people with epilepsy, 169,127 with peripheral neuropathy, 60,861 with Alzheimer鈥檚 or other dementia, 54,676 with MS and 45,909 with Parkinson鈥檚 disease. MS drugs had the largest increase in costs, with the average out-of-pocket drug cost increasing from $750 per year in 2012 to $2,378 per year in 2021. All MS drugs had increasing out-of-pocket costs. 鈥淢S medications costs remain exceptionally high and pose a substantial financial burden to people with this devastating disease,鈥 Gusovsky said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 imperative that we develop policy solutions such as caps on costs, value-based pricing and encouraging production of generic drugs to address this issue.鈥 The study found that the cost of several drugs for these diseases decreased by 48% to 80% in the years after a generic version of the drug was introduced. Gusovsky said both neurologists and patients should consider the use of generic or biosimilar drugs where available to control costs. She noted that previous studies have shown that high costs can create burdens such as medical debt, skipping food or other essentials or not taking drugs as often as prescribed, which can possibly lead to complications and higher costs later. A limitation of the study is that the data represents billed charges, which are an estimate of actual costs. Learn more about brain health at , home of the 好色先生鈥檚 free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life庐 on , and . When posting to social media channels about this research, we encourage you to use the hashtags #Neurology and #AANscience.