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# Drug Spending Ebbed Last Year: Report
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/drug-spending-ebbed-last-year-report/
- Published: 2017-05-05T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T22:22:03.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5138627

Growth in U.S. spending on prescription drugs dropped last year as competition between manufacturers heated up and payers stepped up efforts to curb price increases, according to QuintilesIMS Institute’s annual report, [*Medicines Use and Spending in the U.S. – A Review of 2016 and Outlook to 2021*](https://c.appatureinc.com/trk/200/6184a5f108bc387dea0930485561df44/MmUxNTM2ZWMtYTU2Ny00Zjg3LWJkMWQtZGE4ZWRlOGQyOTA4/2914/2542/1?ref=fdaweb.com)*.* It finds that drug spending grew at about a 5% pace in 2016 to $323 billion, less than half the rate of the previous two years. “The surge of innovative medicines paused last year, with fewer than half as many new drugs launched than in 2014 and 2015,” it says.

  
New drug approvals over the past two years are a high cost driver, and an examination of the product pipeline shows that this will likely continue, the report notes. “The prospects for innovative treatments over the next five years are bright, fueled by a robust late-phase pipeline of more than 2,300 novel products that include more than 600 cancer treatments,” it says. “U.S. net total spending is expected to increase 2-5% on average through 2021, reaching $375-$405 billion.”