Will Plunging Drug Spending Deter Future Product Investment?

Analysis of a decade's worth of information from multiple databases on trends in spending for psychotropic medications shows that the average rate of growth in such spending dropped dramatically from 18.5 percent in the period 1997-2001 to 6.3 percent from 2001-2008.  In addition, growth in the per-day cost of a psychotropic medication declined from 8 percent to 2 percent during the same time frame. A key factor in the growth slowdown was the steadily increasing popularity of generic versions of once-branded psychiatric medications. The researchers conducting the analysis, led by Tami Mark, Ph.D., M.B.A., of Thomson Reuters, suggest that as pharmaceutical companies see their profits from the sale of brand-name psychotropics decline, they may become loath to invest heavily in new products to treat psychiatric illnesses.

Read more about this study in the January 6 issue of Psychiatric News and the January issue of the journal Psychiatric Services.

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