Credit: J.B. Reed/Bloomberg
Workers filled fewer prescriptions in 2023 than in 2022, and the drug that cost their employers the most was Humira — a drug that tries to keep people's immune systems from attacking their own cells — not the hot new GLP-1 agonist diabetes and obesity control drugs.
But GLP-1 agonists held four of the slots on Milliman's list of the 10 most costly prescription drugs for employer-sponsored health plans, up from two the year before.
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Milliman analysts look at what medications ate up the most employer pharmacy benefits dollars in the firm's latest commercial drug trends review.
Milliman
Milliman is a Seattle-based firm that provides actuarial services and other services for insurers and employer plans. It bases in drug trends reviews on a database that holds health plan claim information for about 80 million employees, spouses and dependents.
Overall trends
The employees fill 1.3 30-day prescriptions per month in 2023, or 3% fewer prescriptions than they filled in 2022.
But the average cost of a prescription increased 9.3%, to $142.65.
The most commonly used drug continued to be atorvastatin calcium, an anti-cholesterol drug: health plans paid for 522 atorvastatin calcium prescriptions per 1,000 members.
But the number of prescriptions for that statin filled fell 2.9% from the year before.
The money eaters
Prescriptions for Humira "pens," or syringes, cost the employer plans in Milliman's database $145,002 for every 1,000 enrollees, or about $145 per enrollee.
That was 4.7% higher than the 2022 total.
Manufacturers have put pressure on Humira by adding "biosimilars," or similar types of drugs.
The competing drugs may now are starting to reduce the share of employers' prescription spending now going to pay for the drug.
Ozempic, a GLP-1 agonist classified as a drug for treating diabetes, moved into the second slot, from third.
Spending on Ozempic climbed 45%, to $89,374 per thousand enrollees. The increase was due mainly to more enrollees using the drug, not higher prices, according to Milliman.
In 2022, the only GLP-1 agonists ranking in the top 10 in terms of spending were Ozempic and Trulicity.
In 2023, Ozempic, Trulicity, Mounjaro and Wegovy all ranked in the top 10.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
