November 15, 2011 
As we’ve seen over the past few years, branded drug prices continue to go up YOY (year-over-year). So far in 2011, based on analysis by Barclay’s Capital, the prices have gone up 7.2%. You can see that this is the highest it’s been.
Given that brand drugs are typically only 20-30% of the oral solid market, this effect is dampened by the generic prices which typically go down. At the same time, this can have a major impact on specialty drugs which are estimated to become about 40% of your spend by 2015.
Keep in mind that these are changes in list prices (WAC), not changes in the actual price paid by a consumer or third-party payer.
Good point. But payers likely see the majority of this inflation. Consumers will see a minority of the inflation (about 20%) if they have co-insurance.