Despite the increase in restrictions noted in the restrictions analysis, the statin market remains relatively open with over 80% of covered lives in the U.S. currently having access to each of the top three statins without any restrictions. The Fingertip Formulary Market Basket Analysis report provides further evaluation of how open or closed the formularies are for a particular drug class.
As an additional analysis, we evaluated the top three statins and analyzed and compared their overall tier 1 and tier 2 availability across all plan types. Specifically, we looked to see how often either two of the three or three of these three statins was preferred (either tier 1 or tier 2).
We analyzed formulary status data from over 1,300 plans and found the following:
- About 78% of the covered Medicare lives have at least two out of the three statins as either tier 1 or tier 2.
- On the non-Medicare side, our analysis revealed that about 81% of the covered lives have at least two out of the three drugs as either tier 1 or tier 2.
Based on these findings, it is our opinion that the health plans are relatively open with this drug class.
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Archives
December 2007: Lack of Impact from Two Key Generics in the Anti-depressant Formulary Market
October 2007: Formulary Position Differences between Commercial and Medicare Plans
September 2007: Impact of Patent Loss for Zocor on the Statin Marketplace
