Slide Presentation of the 2007 Annual Meeting of AHRQ

Monthly Costs of Equally Drug Choices: NSAIDS, Antidepressants, ACE Inhibitors, 2005

Screen shot of a bar chart comparing monthly costs for three different medication categories. The data shown is as follows:

Notes

Monthly drug costs in 3 categories: NSAIDs, antidepressants and PPIs.
Comparing the cost of brand drugs such as Celebrex, Zoloft, Nexium with best buy drugs, ibuprofen, fluoxetine and Prilosec OTC
Potential savings, without sacrificing safety or effectiveness are large
Stakes are high: Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy recently estimated that as anation, consumers and third party payers have overspent $4.45 billion over the past 3 years on NSAIDs, when there were therapeutically equivalent, lower-cost therapies available.