“You certainly envision a significant impact on Medicare Part D spending, both on the program and on beneficiaries,” says Leigh Purvis, AARP’s director of healthcare cost and access. “It’s indicative of the larger problem where we’ve left pharma companies free to continue to engage in the kind of pricing behavior that has been problematic for so long.” New data from AARP shows that in January 2022, the average list price increase for the top 75 brand name drugs was 5.2%. Price increases ranged from 2% to 7.9%, and the prices of more than half (42 of 75) increased by 5% or more.As

AARP’s Fair Rx Prices Now campaign has worked to convince lawmakers to allow Medicare to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical manufacturers, impose tax penalties on drug manufacturers who raise prices more than the inflation and to cap Part D disbursements.

Here’s a look at the 10 drugs Medicare spent the most money on in 2020 and whose prices rose in January 2022.

1. Equip

• Use: A blood thinner for people with atrial fibrillation (A-fib)
• Health insurance expenditure in 2020: $9.9 billion
• Number of beneficiaries: 2,641,941
• January 2022 price increase: 6 percent

2. Revlimid

• Use: To treat cancer
• Health insurance expenditure in 2020: $5.4 billion
• Number of beneficiaries: 43,747
• January 2022 price increase: 4.5%

3. Xarelto

• Use: A blood thinner for people with atrial fibrillation (A-fib)
• Health insurance expenditure in 2020: $4.7 billion
• Number of beneficiaries: 1,184,718
• January 2022 price increase: 4.9%

4. Januvia

• Use: To treat diabetes
• Health insurance expenditure in 2020: $3.9 billion
• Number of beneficiaries: 934 686
• January 2022 price increase: 5 percent

5. Truth

• Use: To treat diabetes
• Health insurance expenditure in 2020: $3.3 billion
• Number of beneficiaries: 497 327
• January 2022 price increase: 5 percent

6. Imbruvic

• Use: To treat cancer
• Health insurance expenditure in 2020: $3 billion
• Number of beneficiaries: 26,847
• January 2022 price increase: 7.4%

7. Gardening

• Use: To treat diabetes
• Health insurance expenditure in 2020: $2.4 billion
• Number of beneficiaries: 594 859
• January 2022 price increase: 4 percent

8. Humira Pen (Cf)

• Use: To treat rheumatoid arthritis, plaque psoriasis
• Health insurance expenditure in 2020: $2.2 billion
• Number of beneficiaries: 42,406
• January 2022 price increase: 7.4%

9. Ibrance

• Use: To treat cancer
• Health insurance expenditure in 2020: $2.1 billion
• Number of beneficiaries: 21,394
• January 2022 price increase: 6.9%

10. Symbicort

• Use: To treat asthma
• Health insurance expenditure in 2020: $2 billion
• Number of beneficiaries: 1,017,530
• January 2022 price increase: 2 percent

Dena Bunis covers Medicare, health care, health policy and Congress. She also writes the “Medicare Made Easy” column for the AARP Newsletter. An award-winning journalist, Bunis has spent decades working for metropolitan dailies, including as Washington bureau chief for the Orange County Register and as a health and workplace policy maker for press day.