Medicare released new data identifying prescription medicines that had sharp price increases and those which accounted for its largest total spending in 2015.

Medicare spending on Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.'s diabetes drug Glumetza more than quadrupled to $153 million in 2015 from 2014, driven by a total price increase of 381%, according to the data, released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Glumetza prescription unit volume within Medicare declined 7% over the same period.

The price of Pfizer Inc.'s pain-reliever Lyrica jumped 19% from 2014 to 2015, the sharpest increase among the 10 largest drugs by total Medicare spending last year, according to the data. Spending on the drug rose 26% to $1.8 billion.

The costliest drug to Medicare last year was the hepatitis C treatment Harvoni, made by Gilead Sciences Inc., with $7.03 billion in total spending in 2015, followed by Sanofi SA's diabetes treatment Lantus, which had $4.4 billion in total spending.

Valeant said in a statement that it has committed to not raise prices higher than 9.9% annually.

Sanofi declined to comment. The other companies didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Many of the drugs with the biggest price increases were generics. Spending on the dermatology drug clobetasol propionate more than doubled to $389.7 million, with a 145% price increase offsetting a 1% decline in prescription units, according to the data.

Medicare released the data as an update to its online database, the "Medicare Drug Spending Dashboard." The database, which attempts to shed light on prescription drug costs, was launched in December 2015.

The role of price increases on rising U.S. prescription drug costs have become an increasingly hot-button political issue. In September, Mylan NV Chief Executive Heather Bresch was called to testify before Congress to explain her company's sharp price increases on EpiPen, an emergency medication to counter severe allergic reactions.

Debate over drug prices has been clouded by a lack of transparency in the net prices that insurers and government programs pay for drugs. Drug makers, including Mylan, say that their sometimes dramatic list-price increases are misleading because they don't reflect the confidential discounts and rebates that drug companies pay to large customers.

Medicare officials on Monday said the agency's Part D program received $16.3 billion in rebates on brand-name drugs in 2014, or 17.5% of gross spending. For certain drug classes, rebates were higher. Rebates for heart-disease medications, for instance, lowered Medicare's costs for the drugs by 26.3% in 2014, according to Medicare officials.

The Medicare Part D program typically receives lower rebates than private health insurers, according to the government.

Write to Joseph Walker at joseph.walker@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 14, 2016 16:15 ET (21:15 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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