Inflation Reduction Act’s Impact on Drug Costs, Patient Abandonment

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed in 2022 and its benefits for US patients have gradually been noticed in things like out-of-pocket caps on insulin. However, patients continue to experience sticker shock regarding drug prices and are abandoning their prescriptions at an alarming rate.

“Patient walks into a pharmacy and the pharmacist says, ‘Yep, here's your prescription. Got it from your doctor. It's going to be $250,’” Michael Kleinrock, Lead Director of Research at IQVIA, told Drug Topics. “More than half of those people just walk away. We've done studies over the years looking at that, comparing it to household incomes, comparing to other features, and basically, it doesn't matter if you're wealthy or not, those abandonment rates are very similar.”

In part 3 of our interview with Kleinrock, he discussed the role of federal policy in prescription drug pricing, presenting insights from his team’s findings throughout their research into the use and spend of prescription drugs in the US.

As IQVIA’s director of research, he leads a team that conducts annual reports for both domestic and international audiences. In our interview with Kleinrock, he delved into the Understanding the use of medicines in the U.S. 2025 report.

“Our perspective has been, let's model the impact of things that have been announced and made into policy. We find that the speculation is challenging, and that what we hope with our reports is to put something that helps you understand a baseline without the effect of those scenarios.”

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Reference

Understanding the use of medicines in the U.S. 2025. IQVIA. 2025. Accessed July 14, 2025. https://www.iqvia.com/insights/the-iqvia-institute/reports-and-publications/reports/understanding-the-use-of-medicines-in-the-us-2025