With nearly 116.7 million dispensed prescriptions, atorvastatin was the most prescribed medicine in the United States in 2021. Atorvastatin is a medicine used to help lower cholesterol and can also be taken to prevent heart disease. The number of prescriptions issued annually for the drug increased by around 12 million between 2017 and 2021.
Top therapeutic classes and products
There were over 1.2 billion prescriptions written for antihypertensive drugs in 2022, making it the therapeutic category with the most dispensed prescriptions in the United States. Approximately 74 billion U.S. dollars were spent on In the U.S., antidiabetics are among the therapy areas where the most money is spent. Humira – a branded drug used to treat arthritis – is the top medicine based on 2022 sales in the United States, generating nearly 19 billion U.S. dollars.
Does health insurance cover prescription drugs?
More than 600 billion U.S. dollars was spent on medicines in the United States in 2022. The majority of the population of the United States has health insurance, which includes prescription drug coverage. However, there are occasions when the health insurance plan does not cover the drug prescribed by a doctor. When this happens, patients may have to pay the full price of the medication out of their own pocket.