Pharma Companies Have Hiked Prices on Nearly 800 Drugs in 2024

Hope you have good insurance. 

A slew of pharmaceutical giants have raised list prices for 775 drugs already this year, according to a 46brooklyn Research analysis conducted for The Wall Street Journal.

Big Pharma, Big Prices

Medication price hikes at the start of a year are typical, but they’re still annoying to doctors and patients. Drugmakers often cite inflation, research and development costs, and drug quality as justification. Sometimes they even say they’re raising prices not for more profit but so they can offer bigger discounts to the middlemen that distribute medicines to drug stores (sure, OK).

But this year, price hikes are already outpacing inflation. Prices have gone up by a median of 4.5% — higher than the latest inflation rate of 3.4%  — and some drug prices increased 10% or more, the WSJ reported:

• Novo Nordisk, the makers of everyone’s favorite weight loss (but actually diabetes) drug, raised the price of Ozempic by 3.5% to roughly $970 for a month’s supply. The similar Mounjaro from drugmaker Eli Lilly increased 4.5% to $1,070 a month.
• Other drugs like the anti-inflammatory Dupixent, HIV treatment Biktarvy, and psoriasis therapy Skyrizi, saw their prices increase 6%, 4.9%, and 5.8%, respectively.  Vertex Pharmaceuticals bumped up the prices of cystic fibrosis treatment Trikafta 5.9%, which means a 28-day supply costs just over $26,500.

Breathe easy: Surprisingly, prices for more than two dozen drugs have fallen by more than 10% this year, the analysis found. GSK cut prices on its Advair asthma medication, and the prices for Sanofi’s Lantus and Novo Nordisk’s Novolog — both insulin products — dropped by more than 70%.