Sales from 340B drug discount program rose to $63 billion last year

Prescription medicines bought within the U.S. beneath a controversial authorities low cost program amounted to $63 billion in 2023, a 23.4% improve from the earlier 12 months, in accordance with the Well being Sources & Companies Administration, which oversees this system.

The info mark a gradual rise in gross sales beneath the 340B Drug Low cost Program, which requires drugmakers to supply reductions which can be usually estimated to be 25% to 50% — however may very well be larger — off all outpatient medication to hospitals and clinics that primarily serve lower-income sufferers. There are greater than 12,000 entities taking part in this system, a quantity that has grown considerably.

Because it started greater than 30 years in the past, this system has ballooned and fed into the nationwide conflict over the price of medicines. Some $38 billion in prescription drugs had been bought beneath the 340B program in 2020, as an example, which was up from $16.2 billion in 2016. And this fast-paced trajectory has triggered a battle between the pharmaceutical and hospital industries.