New research published in JAMA Neurology on Monday reports that the annual cost of “self-administered disease-modifying therapies for multiple sclerosis more than quadrupled” between 2006-2016, raising the mean yearly costs for drugs from $18,660 to $75,847. The median American family income is $61,372. The out-of-pocket spending for a patient needing these drugs has risen from $372 annually in 2006 to $2,673 in 2016. The researchers point out that considering the market for these drugs has seen almost double the competition from new self-administered, disease-modifying therapies for multiple sclerosis since 2009, the price increase shows that competition isn’t working to moderate prices.
Inmaculada Hernandez, an ssistant professor of pharmacy at University of Pittsburgh and senior author of the report, told Science Daily, "We wanted to see how increases in list prices translated to increases in out-of-pocket spending, and we discovered that actual price increases do get passed down to patients, and that can negatively affect access.” The team looked at Medicare beneficiaries over this time to point out that the increases to Medicare spending on the drug, problematic for a lots of reasons, still did not immunize patients from being hit with out-of-pocket expense increases.
And while millions of Americans borrowed more than $88 billion last year alone to cover medical expenses, it’s not just big-ticket items that hurt their pockets: It’s also the millions of little cuts, the $20 a bottle for what was once $4, that pile up over time.