Will prescription drug spending decreases affect dermatology?

Implications: This article is important in that it describes a worrying trend for branded  pharmaceutical companies. As copays for branded products go up and the patients economic status worsens, the use of these drugs will fall. This may be especially true for medications in dermatology, where the perceived need may be less than that for a cardiac drug. The pipelines in dermatology are smaller due to high drug development costs, and limited means to recover them, because the market is smaller than that for other conditions. Many of our patients are complaining about difficulty in getting insurers to cover their branded products, and copays and requests for prior authorizations have increased exponentially. A positive factor is that many of the products in dermatology still enjoy several years of patent protection.

Analysis: The companies that will be most affected by this slowdown would be the branded manufacturers like Medicis, Allergan, Galderma, Stiefel, etc.  Most have products that are patent protected for the moment, and have copay assistance plans, so that the impact will be reduced.