The 20 Most Expensive Prescription Drugs in America
Typical cost of 30-day supply: $10,400*
Treats: Multiple sclerosis
Competition from generics and growing concerns about its safety have slowed sales of this drug, the flagship product of pharmaceutical firm Biogen. Even so, revenues from the drug reportedly grew 10 percent last year due to price increases.
*Data from GoodRx.
Biogen
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $12,300
Treats: Multiple sclerosis
A long-time blockbuster drug for Teva Pharmaceuticals, sales of copaxone have flagged recently amid increasing generic competition. The company has reportedly more than doubled the price of the drug since 2010.
Teva Neuroscience
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $13,200
Treats: Myelofibrosis and polycythemia vera
This cancer treatment targets proteins that control the production of blood cells. Like many chemo therapies, it has serious side effects.
Incyte Corporation
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $15,400
Treats: Prostate cancer
A form of chemotherapy approved by the FDA in 2011, Zytiga can extend the life of late-stage prostate cancer patients by several months. Last year it generated more than $2 billion in revenue for owner Johnson & Johnson.
Janssen Biotech
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $15,800
Treats: Multiple myeloma
Pomalyst is aimed at patients who have tried multiple other treatments for multiple myeloma without success. Like many cancer treatments, the side effects can be severe.
Celgene Corporation
Typical cost for 30-day supply: $25,300
Treats: High cholesterol
Approved by the FDA in 2013, Kynamro treats a deadly, inherited type of high cholesterol. The drug is injected at home once a week.
Kastle Therapeutics
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $26,000
Treats: Toxoplasmosis
Daraprim became the poster child for unfair drug price gouging when Turing Pharmaceuticals purchased the drug last year and hiked the price from $13.50 to $750 per tablet. Following a public backlash, competitors introduced a similar drug that sells for about $1 per pill.
Turing Pharmaceuticals
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $29,300
Treats: Plaque psoriasis; psoriatic arthritis; ankylosing spondylitis, a form of arthritis that affects the spine and large joints
Approved in early 2015, Cosentyx treats moderate to severe plaque psoriasis by targeting the protein thought to cause it. Eight in 10 people who used the drug saw their skin clear up significantly.
Novartis Pharmaceuticals
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $29,300
Treats: Wilson’s disease
A University of Michigan doctor told a Senate committee earlier this year that Syprine prices have now gone so high that it’s cheaper to get a liver transplant than to take the drug. Valeant Pharmaceuticals reportedly purchased the drug in 2010 and had since increased the price by 3,000 percent.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $29,700
Treats: Cystic fibrosis
Kalydeco received the Forbes Breakthrough Drug Award last year, for “dramatically improving the lives of patients and conquering a scientific challenge that had vexed researchers for decades.” The drug hit the market in 2012, and treats a specific genetic mutation that some CF patients have.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Typical cost for 30-day supply: $34,600
Treats: hepatitis C
Owned by AbbVie, the FDA in April expanded the type of hepatitis patients who could be treated by Viekira Pak. The drug stops the hepatitis C virus from multiplying.
AbbVie Inc
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $35,800
Treats: Hereditary Angioedema, a blood disorder
Patients with HAE take Cyrinze to prevent an attack, and Firazyr once symptoms of one occur. They’re both owned by the pharmaceutical firm Shire.
Shire
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $39,800
Treats: Wilson’s Disease, the buildup of copper in liver and other organs; Cystinuria, which causes kidney stones; and rheumatoid arthritis.
Cuprimine is owned by Valeant Pharmaceuticals, a company that has drawn intense criticism for the way that it prices its drugs. Cuprimine reportedly cost just $93 a decade ago.
ATON Pharma
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $41,200
Treats: cystic fibrosis
Orkambi, which treats cystic fibrosis patients who have a specific gene mutation, won FDA approval last month to be given to patients as young as six years old. It had previously been limited to those age 12 and older.
© Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $41,800
Treats: hepatitis C
Approved in November 2014, Johnson & Johnson’s Oylsio was one of the first drugs with high hepatitis C cure rates, but it has since lost market share to competitors such as Sovaldi. More than 3 million Americans, including 5 percent of veterans, have hepatitis C, a potentially deadly liver disease.
Janssen Therapeutics
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $50,700
Treats: hepatitis C
Approved by the Food and Drug Administration last summer, Daklinza can cure 90 percent of patients who haven’t been previously treated and 86 percent of those who had failed a previous treatment. It’s specifically aimed at patients with hep C genotype 3, which is considered the most difficult to treat.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $51,600
Treats: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus; Proteinuria in Nephrotic Syndrome, too much protein in urine; dermatomyositis and polymyositis, bone joint and muscle disorders; rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis; multiple sclerosis; infantile spasms, a catastrophic form of childhood epilepsy; sarcoidosis, an inflammation disease; and several ophthalmic conditions.
In 2014, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceutical purchased the company that made ACTH, a 60-year-old drug whose per-vial price had reportedly risen from $40 to $28,000 in a decade. The drug is administered via injection.
Mallinckrodt
Typical cost for a 30-day supply: $72,100
Treats: Hereditary Angioedema, a blood disorder
Cinryze is the only FDA-approved treatment for HAE, which causes potentially life-threatening extreme swelling to extremities that can last for days. The drug is administered via injection either in a doctor’s office or at home.
Shire
Typical cost for 30-day supply: $74,000
Treats: hepatitis C
Harvoni is made by Gilead Pharmaceuticals and boasts cure rates of more than 95 percent, more than twice that of competitors. Prices have come down slightly this year as new drugs enter the market.
Gilead Sciences, Inc.
Typical cost for 30-day supply: $75,600
Treats: Hepatitis C
Drug-maker Gilead Pharmaceuticals claims that the price of the pills, which boast an extraordinary cure rate, is justified because of the money spent developing them. When it launched in 2014, Sovaldi quickly became the fastest-selling drug in history
Gilead Sciences