With America's attention on COVID-19, drugmakers are quietly raising US prescription prices

Just halfway through January, Americans already have seen more price hikes on name brand drugs than during the entire month last year.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — With most Americans focused on COVID-19 vaccines, pharmaceutical companies are quietly raising the list prices of name-brand prescription drugs at a torrid pace.

market. Already, more price hikes by drugmakers have been recorded in less than half a month (813) this year than for all of January 2020 (737), according to research by Ohio non-profit 46brooklyn.

"It is clear from the data that January 2021 is bucking the recent downward trends in brand drugmaker list price increases," said one of the founders of 46brooklyn, former Ohio Pharmacists Association lobbyist Antonio Ciaccia.

"And it is also clear that aside from price increases, the launch prices for new drugs has been going up over time.".

The cost of prescription drugs remains among the top issues for Americans, surveys show. Three in 10 say they haven’t taken their medicine as prescribed due to costs, including many who skip doses or cut their pills in half.

Already this month the prices of 813 brand-name prescription drugs have increased in the U.S., indicating the record January high for the past decade of 895 may be smashed in the next two weeks, according to research by 46brooklyn.

Pfizer, which with BioNTech developed the first COVID-19 authorized for use by the federal government, has raised the prices on 193 name-brand drugs this month, although the median increase is a modest 0.5%.

However, the price jump was about 5% for several of Pfizer's most popular drugs, such as Xeljanz, which treats rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and ulcerative colitis; Lyrica, used for nerve and muscle pain; Ibrance, a breast cancer inhibitor; and sedative Xanax.

But in the complex world of drug pricing, essentially no one actually pays the list price, usually called the wholesale acquisition cost.

The overall net cost of brand-name drugs actually fell in 2020, while list prices grew at their slowest rate in at least 20 years, according to the online publication Drug Channels.

Although generic drugs far outnumber brand-names, the latter account for about 80% of drug spending in the U.S.

The 8.9% price jump for one of those drugs, Etanercept, cost $403 million nationwide — "the single largest impact on national drug spending among all drugs evaluated in this report."