Posted by Michael Wonder on 21 Aug 2018
Brand name combo pills may cost more than getting drugs separately
22 August 2018 - Brand name medicines that combine multiple drugs into a single pill may be more expensive than buying each drug separately, a U.S. study suggests.
Researchers examined data collected from 2011 to 2016 on 1,500 medicines that accounted for the highest total spending for Medicare Part D drug plans in 2015. This included 29 brand-name combination pills with generic alternatives available.
For the ten most costly brand-name combo pills, Medicare could have spent $2.7 billion less if generic alternatives had been prescribed instead, researchers estimate.
