Reducing ineffective health care spending on pharmaceuticals

This chapter focuses on opportunities to spend less on pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies. It starts with a discussion of perhaps the most intuitive case of waste, which occurs when prescribed pharmaceuticals (and other medical goods) are discarded unused. Next, the chapter proceeds to the foregone opportunities associated with not substituting originator drugs with cheaper therapeutic alternatives, such as generics or biosimilars. The final issue explored is whether lower prices for pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies could be obtained with more efficient procurement processes.