America's 10 Most Popular Prescription Drugs

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slimvictor

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What Millions Are Taking
By Maia Szalavitz Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The contents of America's medicine cabinets — as captured by IMS Health's new report on U.S. prescription drug use — offer an interesting snapshot of our national health. A look at the top 10 most popularly prescribed drugs, for instance, reflects an aching, aging, overweight citizenry.

The report also finds that for the first time, all top 10 drugs are generics, a shift that resulted in a significantly smaller increase in drug spending in 2010 (2.3%), compared with 2009 (5.1%). Likewise, when measured by total volume, use of oral and nasal drugs increased just 0.5% in 2010 — an historic low, which actually represents a decline of 0.3% on a per capita basis.

The rate of doctor visits also fell: the number of visits to American doctor's offices dropped 4.2% in 2010, and the number of patients starting new drug treatments for chronic conditions declined by 3.4 million. The reports authors suggest that the recession — along with high rates of unemployment, lack of health insurance and rising health-care costs — may be the main contributing factors to the downturn in drug use.

Following are the top 10 most popularly prescribed drugs in the U.S., according to the report "The Use of Medicines in the United States: Review of 2010" [PDF here] by IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.


Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/19/americas-10-most-popular-prescription-drugs/#ixzz1K2bWTKX4
 
Hammilton said:
only one controlled substance? wow
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Yeah, it's the top one, hydrocodone.

Type of drug: opioid
Used to treat: pain
Number of prescriptions in 2010: 131.2 million
Number of prescriptions in 2009: 128.2 million
Vicodin is prescribed to treat chronic pain, which affects 20% to 30% of adults and is twice as common in women as in men. The pill is also commonly prescribed to treat pain following dental procedures. Though drug misuse may account for part of the reason that hydrocodone is so popular, fewer than 3% of people prescribed opioids for chronic pain actually develop new addictions.


Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/19/americas-10-most-popular-prescription-drugs/#ixzz1K613a08k
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It doesn't surprise me that there aren't more controlled substances on the list. After all, they're on the list to make them more difficult to get, right?
 
Mostly all the drugs on that list look like utter junk garbage. It's hard for me to see how they became so profitable. I am of the opinion that they look like a waste of money. I'm not dissing the whole of the pharmaceutical industry since a number of potentially useful medicinal molecules have been fabricated over the years. However, some of the products that are currently on the market look plain ugly and it is difficult for me to envisage that they confer medical benefits to the patient.
 
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^ As someone just a year away from a PharmD, most of the top 10 filled scripts are pretty decent. However, I wish that azithromycin and and omeprazole weren't up there, as they are very over-prescibed.
 
Smyth said:
Mostly all the drugs on that list look like utter junk garbage. It's hard for me to see how they became so profitable. I am of the opinion that they look like a waste of money. I'm not dissing the whole of the pharmaceutical industry since a number of potentially useful medicinal molecules have been fabricated over the years. However, some of the products that are currently on the market look plain ugly and it is difficult for me to envisage that they confer medical benefits to the patient.
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I know! Treatments for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure... how much more useless could they possibly get?
 
SPENDING $BN 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006
Total US Market 307.4 300.3 285.7 280.5 270.3
1 Lipitor® 7.2 7.6 7.8 8.1 8.6
2 Nexium® 6.3 6.3 5.9 5.4 5.1
3 Plavix® 6.1 5.6 4.8 3.9 2.9
4 Advair Diskus 4.7 4.7 4.4 4.2 3.9
5 Abilify® 4.6 4.0 3.0 2.3 1.9
6 Seroquel® 4.4 4.2 3.8 3.4 3.0
7 Singulair® 4.1 3.7 3.5 3.4 3.0
8 Crestor® 3.8 3.0 2.1 1.7 1.3
9 Actos® 3.5 3.4 3.1 2.9 2.6
10 Epogen® 3.3 3.2 3.0 3.0 3.2
11 Remicade® 3.3 3.2 3.0 2.7 2.5
12 Enbrel® 3.3 3.3 3.1 3.1 3.1
13 Cymbalta® 3.2 2.8 2.4 1.9 1.2
14 Avastin® 3.1 3.0 2.5 2.2 1.7
15 Oxycontin® 3.1 2.9 2.3 1.0 0.8
16 Neulasta® 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0 2.8
17 Zyprexa® 3.0 2.7 2.5 2.4 2.4
18 Humira® 2.9 2.5 2.1 1.5 1.2
19 Lexapro® 2.8 2.8 2.7 2.6 2.4
20 Rituxan® 2.8 2.6 2.4 2.2 2.0
21 Aricept® 2.5 2.3 1.9 1.6 1.4
22 Lovenox® 2.3 2.8 2.6 2.3 2.0
23 Atripla® 2.2 1.9 1.4 0.9 0.2
24 Copaxone® 2.2 1.7 1.4 1.1 1.0
25 Spiriva®Handihaler® 2.0 1.7 1.4 1.1 0.7
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DISPENSED PRESCRIPTIONS MN 2010
Total US Market 3,995.2
1 hydrocodone/acetaminophen 131.2
2 simvastatin 94.1
3 lisinopril 87.4
4 levothyroxine sodium 70.5
5 amlodipine besylate 57.2
6 omeprazole (RX) 53.4
7 azithromycin 52.6
8 amoxicillin 52.3
9 metformin HCL 48.3
10 hydrochlorothiazide 47.8
11 alprazolam 46.3
12 Lipitor® 45.3
13 furosemide 43.4
14 metoprolol tartrate 38.9
15 zolpidem tartrate 38.0
16 atenolol 36.3
17 sertraline HCL 35.7
18 metoprolol succinate 33.0
19 citalopram HBR 32.1
20 warfarin sodium 32.0
21 oxycodone/acetaminophen 31.9
22 ibuprofen (RX) 31.1
23 Plavix® 29.5
24 gabapentin 29.3
25 Singulair® 28.7
Source: IMS Health, National Prescription Audit, Dec 2010
2009 2008 2007 2006
3,949.2 3,866.3 3,825.1 3,706.4
128.2 124.1 119.2 112.4
83.8 67.5 47.9 14.4
82.8 76.8 71.1 65.2
66.0 61.2 54.6 49.8
51.3 44.6 27.9 —
45.4 35.1 26.6 18.0
53.8 51.0 46.3 36.5
52.4 50.9 53.2 54.7
44.3 42.3 40.2 38.4
47.9 48.5 48.5 48.0
43.9 41.7 39.8 37.6
51.7 58.5 65.8 74.0
43.5 44.1 44.2 44.3
41.1 32.6 31.6 29.2
35.1 29.9 16.0 —
39.3 41.8 44.7 46.1
34.2 32.7 31.6 10.8
26.9 41.5 21.0 0.6
27.1 22.4 17.8 14.0
31.6 30.2 28.8 26.7
30.2 28.4 25.9 22.8
30.3 28.5 27.7 26.8
29.9 28.9 25.1 18.4
25.4 22.2 20.0 18.5
28.6 29.0 31.0 28.1
 
i use 2 from the list and they make my genetic fuckedupedness tolerable .
better living through chemistry !
 
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