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(New throughout, adds more prescribing data and details ofneurology drug price rise)
By Sharon Begley
NEW YORK, April 30 (Reuters) - Four brand-name medicationsaccounted for almost one-tenth of the $103 billion inprescriptions filled by older or disabled Americans underMedicare's drug program in 2013, U.S. officials reported onThursday.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) saidAstraZeneca Plc's Nexium "purple pill" for acid refluxtopped the list with prescriptions totaling $2.5 billion,followed by $2.3 billion for GlaxoSmithKline Plc's inhaled Advair for asthma.
Third was AstraZeneca's cholesterol-lowering Crestor with$2.2 billion of prescriptions, while Otsuka Corp's anti-psychotic Abilify was fourth with $2.1 billion.
The data cover prescriptions filled under Medicare's drugprogram, called Part D, and is the first time it has beenreleased. The costs include co-payments by patients as well aswhat Medicare paid, but not manufacturer rebates.
Part D went into effect in 2006 as part of thegovernment-run insurance program for disabled Americans andthose 65 and over. In 2013, 35.7 million beneficiaries (68percent of all Medicare patients) were enrolled in Part D, whichis run by private health insurers led by UnitedHealth Group Inc and Humana Inc.
The data include number of prescriptions filled, total dayssupply for these prescriptions, and their total cost. They alsoinclude prescription information for about 1 million healthcareproviders.
Although the 10 most-prescribed drugs were all brandedmedications, the top 10 by number of claims were all generics.
The most-prescribed Medicare drug was lisinopril, whichtreats hypertension, with 36.9 million prescriptions. It wasfollowed by the cholesterol-lowering drug simvastin with 36.7million and the thyroid drug levothyroxine with 35.2 million.
In releasing the data, officials touted their efforts attransparency, and said they hoped researchers would mine thedata.
"There are many, many smart minds in this country," SeanCavanaugh, CMS deputy administrator, told reporters on Thursday,"and we want to unleash them on this data."
CMS's analysis found that, among specialties,family-practice doctors had the lowest drug costs, at $56 perprescription. Oncologists had the highest costs at $550 perprescription, followed by neurologists at $252, reflecting thehigh prices of cancer and neurology drugs.
A study next month in Neurology describes the "alarmingrise" in the cost of drugs for multiple sclerosis, for instance.Several now cost $60,000 a year after price rises of 20 to 30percent per year from 1993 to 2013, something pharmacy professorand study author Daniel Hartung of Oregon State Universitycalled "inexplicable." (Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Alan Crosby and DavidGregorio)
