Lowest price for top generic drugs in US varies among six discount programs
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Key takeaways:
- Of six drug discount programs, none offered the lowest price for the majority of the top 50 generic drugs in the U.S.
- A 90-day supply of 70% of the medications was available for $15 or less.
A 90-day supply of most of the top generic drugs in the U.S. can be purchased from a discount program for $15 or less, but none of the programs consistently offer the lowest prices for generic drugs, according to two presenters.
“Clinicians should be aware that discount drug programs can offer lower drug prices without the need for insurance, especially for generic drugs,” Camlyn Masuda, PharmD, associate specialist at the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy at University of Hawaii at Hilo, and Chien-Wen Tseng, MD, professor in the department of family medicine and community health at the John. A. Burns School of Medicine at University of Hawaii at Manoa, told Healio. “This is important, especially for their patients without insurance or for patients with high deductible health plans. In the U.S., 27 million people are uninsured, and 49 million people have high deductible health plans that require paying a minimum $1,500 out of pocket.”
Researchers conducted a cross-sectional analysis, presented at the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists annual meeting, of generic drug prices for the Amazon, Costco, CVS, GoodRx, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company and Walmart discount drug programs. Prices were obtained for the top 50 generic drugs in the U.S. according to the 2020 Medicare Expenditure Panel Survey. Prices for each drug’s most commonly prescribed 30-day and 90-day dose were collected from each program’s website. Drugs were considered to have a low price if a 30-day supply was available for $5 or less per month or a 90-day supply cost $15 or less. High-price drugs were defined as a 30-day supply costing $50 or more per month or a 90-day supply costing $150 or more.
When drug prices for a 30-day supply were assessed, Amazon had the lowest price of the six discount programs for 46% of drugs, CVS had the lowest price for 18% of generic medications and GoodRx featured the lowest price for 14%. Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company and CVS each had the highest generic drug price for 34% of medications. Walmart had the highest price for 26% of drugs in the study.
In an analysis of 90-day supply prices, Amazon had lowest price for 32% of medications, followed by GoodRx at 24% and the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company at 18%. CVS had the highest price for 42% of drugs, followed by Walmart at 38%.
“Unfortunately, no single discount program consistently offered the lowest prices for the top 50 generic drugs that we examined,” Masuda and Tseng said. “This is concerning. For example, a patient may have to go to Walmart for one prescription, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs for a second prescription and Amazon for a third prescription if they are chasing the lowest prices for all their generic drugs. This puts a lot of burden on patients and may be impossible or impractical, especially for patients who are vulnerable due to poor health or have fewer resources.”
Of the drugs included in the study, 36% had a low price of less than $5 per month for a 30-day supply and 18% had a high price of $50 or more per month. The average price for a 30-day supply of a drug was $23. For a 90-day supply, 70% of drugs had a low price and 16% had a high price. The average cost for a 90-day supply of a medication was $57.
Masuda and Tseng said more work needs to be done to make generic drugs affordable and easy to access for providers and patients.
“Right now, discount programs are free to change their prices at any time, making it the lowest-priced program one month but not necessarily the lowest-priced program the next month,” Masuda and Tseng said. “It’s really impossible for patients or clinicians to keep track of this. The findings from our study will help us find market and policy solutions to these problems.”
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Masuda C. Abstract P-202. Presented at: ADCES24; Aug, 9-12, 2024; New Orleans.
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