Posted on A to Z of Medical Conditions, Multiple Sclerosis

Newsflash – Costs still on the rise for drugs for neurological diseases, especially Multiple Sclerosis

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The costs that individuals pay out-of-pocket for branded medications to treat neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease continue to rise, particularly for MS drugs. According to a study published in the online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, on October 30, 2024, the average out-of-pocket expenses for MS medications increased by 217% over a nine-year period.

Costs have dropped for medications where generic versions have been introduced.

“In some instances, the out-of-pocket costs for patients have risen significantly more than the total cost of the drug itself, indicating that patients are bearing an unfair share of these cost increases,” said Amanda V. Gusovsky, MPH, PhD, from The Ohio State University in Columbus. “In other cases, when generic drugs were introduced and overall costs decreased, the out-of-pocket expenses for patients did not fall, meaning they did not benefit from these reductions.”

For the study, researchers used a large private healthcare claims database to analyse the costs of medications for five common neurological diseases from 2012 to 2021. The study included 186,144 individuals with epilepsy, 169,127 with peripheral neuropathy, 60,861 with Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia, 54,676 with multiple sclerosis (MS), and 45,909 with Parkinson’s disease.

MS drugs had the largest cost increase, with the average out-of-pocket drug cost increasing from $750 per year in 2012 to $2,378 per year in 2021. All MS drugs had increasing out-of-pocket costs.

“MS medications costs remain exceptionally high and pose a substantial financial burden to people with this devastating disease,” Gusovsky said. “It’s imperative that we develop policy solutions such as caps on costs, value-based pricing and encouraging production of generic drugs to address this issue.”

The study found that the cost of several drugs for these diseases decreased by 48% to 80% in the years after introducing a generic version.

Gusovsky said both neurologists and patients should consider using generic or biosimilar drugs where available to control costs. She noted that previous studies have shown that high costs can create burdens such as medical debt, skipping food or other essentials, or not taking drugs as often as prescribed, which can possibly lead to complications and higher costs later.