IMS Health Prescription Data: Another Slice and Dice

IMS Health released its report for 2010 prescription drug sales yesterday, and Forbes's Matthew Herper (among others) directs his commentary at the number-2 ranking of Nexium, AstraZeneca's me-too proton-pump inhibitor.

There are seemingly innumerable ways to slice, dice, and augment these data—all in the hopes of painting a clearer picture of what's exactly going on with prescription drug sales and costs. My take is to list the top 25 money makers (and who says the age of the blockbuster, let alone the uber-blockbuster, is over?) and compare these numbers with the latest monthly cost of each drug—courtesy of destinationrx.com (my latest, favorite go-to source for prescription drug prices). 

What becomes apparent when you divide the 2010 sales by the monthly cost* is that the makers of several drugs—Copaxone (Teva), Neulasta (Amgen), Rituxan (Genentech/ Roche), Epogen (Amgen)—are clearly capitalizing on the fewest prescriptions for the most desperate patients. Specifically those with multiple sclerosis or cancer. (Check out the last column of the table below.)

This is not to say that pharma should not be able to generate profits off its innovations (or "innovations," in some cases—like Nexium), but there is a point at which the cost of treatment cannot (or should not) be justified on the basis of, "We charge what we charge because we can."

TNF = tumor necrosis factor.

* The big caveat to this informal analysis is that the overall sales for 2010 (numerator) are being divided by the latest (not necessarily 2010) monthly prescription drug prices (denominator).