Infectious Disease

“Extreme” price increases for antiparasitic drugs combined with higher treatment costs

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Lee does not report any relevant financial information. Please refer to the study for all relevant financial information from the other authors.

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“Extreme” price increases for anti-parasite drugs have been linked to increased overall costs for outpatient treatments or TOCs, researchers reported in JAMA Network Open.

“To the best of our knowledge, only a few published studies have directly assessed the relationship between drug prices and consumption.” Junsoo Lee, MS, a researcher in the CDC’s Global Migration and Quarantine Division and colleagues wrote. “The results of this cross-sectional study suggest that significant price increases for drugs can be associated with higher treatment costs for patients and less use of recommended treatments.”

Antiparist cost infographic

Source: Lee J, et al. JAMA network open. 2021; doi: 10.1001 / jamanetworkopen.2021.13963.

Lee and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study to determine the relationship between hookworm and pinworm antiparasitic drug prices with prescribing and prescribing behavior and TOCs. They compared their results with those for Clostridioides difficile because of its similar ambulatory properties and the amount and specificity of the drugs available.

Wholesale prices for albendazole (Albenza, LGM Pharma) increased from USD 3.16 to USD 582 between 2010 and 2019, while prices for mebendazole (Emverm, Amneal) increased from USD 32 to USD 2,853 during the same period. In 45,485 patients with hookworms or pinworms, the standard drug consumption decreased with rising drug prices between 2010 and 2018. Conversely, the standard-of-care consumption of prescription drugs increased as drug prices for C. difficile fell.

In particular, standard care prescriptions decreased from 43% to 28% for patients with hookworms and from 81% to 28% for patients with pinworms. In patients with C. difficile infection, the prescriptions increased from 69% to 77%.

Lee and colleagues wrote that one of the study’s main limitations was its descriptive design.

“There were inherent problems with reliance on harm data (e.g., patients who bought drugs without insurance claims), there was a lack of data on over-the-counter drugs, and there were potentially unrecognized related factors such as companies,” the authors write. “In addition, the findings were limited to privately insured patients.”

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