Global Drug Spending to Top $1 Trillion in 2014

Global spending on drugs will surpass $1 trillion next year and increase 3 to 6 percent annually over the next five years as both developed and developing nations spend more on medicine, according to a study released on Tuesday.

Spending on expensive new specialty drugs for cancer and other ailments will rise to between $230 billion and $240 billion by 2017, up 38 percent from $171 billion last year, the report from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a division of healthcare information company IMS Health, said.

IMS Health said that in the next five years, austerity measures would continue to affect drug spending growth rates in developed markets. Developed nations will have annual drug spending growth of 1 to 4 percent after contraction in 2012, while emerging economies will experience growth of 10 to 13 percent.

Global drug spending was $965 billion in 2012 and is expected to exceed $1.17 trillion in 2017.

In the United States, drug spending is expected to increase in 2014 because of healthcare reform after two years of decline, the report said. It also said the extent to which the healthcare reform law will affect drug spending was unclear.

The world's largest drugmakers include Novartis, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline.