Medicare coverage boosts interest in drug value, prices

Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, now administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is seeking more evidence-based information about how medical treatments affect patients in the real world. Dr McClellan says his first priority is to use the new Medicare pharmacy program, starting with the drug discount card, to lower drug costs. One prime strategy for doing so is to evaluate which therapies are most efficacious as well as cost-effective for specific patient subgroups in order to curb unnecessary spending on prescription drugs.