Increase in prescription costs for diabetes drugs in US

A new report has found that the cost of prescription drugs for treating metabolic conditions such as type 2 diabetes in the United States increased to USD52.2 billion during 2008. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), in its most recent News and Numbers publicatio, said that consumers and insurers spent USD52.2 billion on prescription drugs in that year for outpatient treatment of metabolic conditions such as diabetes and elevated cholesterol .
The findings from the federal agency also revealed that treatments for metabolic conditions were the type of therapies that had the highest level of spending in 2008, with US adults purchasing metabolic drugs totalling 22 per cent of the almost USD233 billion that is spent through the year on prescription medicines .
Purchases on the main therapeutic classes of drug treatments amounted to almost USD156 billio, of the nearly USD233 billion spent on prescription medicines used in the outpatient treatment of adults.
It was also revealed that drugs used to treat the central nervous system for chronic pain, epileptic seizures and Parkinsons disease amounted to USD35 billio, that cardiovascular drugs totalled USD29 billion in spend, that antacids, antidiarrheals, and other drugs for gastrointestinal conditions cost USD20 billio, and that USD20 billion was spent on antidepressants, antipsychotics and other psychotherapeutic drugs.