World’s Drug Bill Will Reach $1.3 Trillion in 2018: Study
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Worldwide spending on medicines will reach almost $1.3 trillion by 2018, as new treatments for hepatitis C and cancer come to market and as people around the globe use rising incomes to buy pharmaceuticals.
The new drugs, such as Gilead Sciences Inc.’s $1,000-per-pill hepatitis C treatment, will help drive the increase in spending up 30 percent from 2013 levels, according to a report published today by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, the research arm of IMS Health Holdings Inc., which tracks drug prescriptions and sells the data.