However, pharmaceutical companies must be allowed to make a profit, Mayo said. No research, no new drugs, she said. But new doesn t necessarily mean better, Sasich said. The new arthritis pain reliever Celebrex is a classic example, said Mary Sevon, MBA, RPh, president of the pharmacy benefit consulting firm Sevon Associates. With 2.5 million prescriptions in its first 13 weeks on the market, Celebrex has reached celebrity status, second only to Viagra in overall popularity.
Consumers also play a role in rising drug expenditures.
Shielded from true costs of prescription medications by their health plans drug benefit, Americans have become cavalier in their pill-popping since they don t view the money as coming from their own pockets, experts say. Consequently, HMOs cost for prescription drug coverage has increased 56 percent from 1993 to 1997, Sevon said. To stem their losses, health plans are increasingly restricting their formularies and introducing differential copayments, which charge consumers more for brand-name drugs than generics. Sevon said that she doesn t know if differential copayments alone will have a significant impact on drug expenditures. You can t have one without the other.