CMS Creates Online Drug Spending Tool for Data Sharing

To boost clarity on drug spending, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has created a new online tool to share data.

The dashboard contains CMS spending information on 80 Part B and Part D Medicare prescription medicines with the highest allocation of dollars.

Overall, the 2014 figures showed spending rose 12 percent — the largest rise since 2002. Horizon Pharma’s Vimovo saw a jump of more than 500 percent from $1.94 per unit ($7.3 million total) to $12.46 per unit ($38.9 million). Cyanocobalamin, a vitamin B12 injection, almost doubled from $1.16 per unit ($3 million overall) to $2.07 per unit ($4.8 million).

The drugs with highest Part D and Part B spending were: Abilify, Advair Diskus, Crestor, Nexium and Sovaldi among Part D drugs; and Eylea, Lucentis, Neulasta, Remicade and Rituxan  — each costing the agency more than $1 billion — in Part B.