This week, we're rerunning some popular posts while we put the finishing touches on DCI’s 2026-27 Economic Report on Pharmaceutical Wholesalers and Specialty Distributors.
Click here to see the original post from July 2026.
By
Adam J. Fein, Ph.D.
Every year,
Drug Channels reviews drug pricing trends at the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers. This year's disclosures provide early evidence that the economics of the U.S. drug channel—and the strategies manufacturers use to secure market access—are beginning to change.
We review the following eight companies: Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, Takeda, Teva, and UCB. You can find links to each company’s data in the
appendix.
Our review found:
- Brand-name drug list prices continued to rise modestly, while mandatory and voluntary rebates, discounts, and fees reduced net prices at seven of the eight manufacturers.
- The average gross-to-net price difference was –5.5%, reflecting an average list price increase of 3.7% and an average net price decline of 1.8%.
- For the three manufacturers that disclosed these data, rebates, discounts, and other fees reduced the selling prices of brand-name drugs to less than half of their list prices.
Sanofi's latest and historical disclosures provide one of the clearest illustrations yet of the drug channel's changing economics. Since 2020, the company's estimated U.S. biopharmaceutical sales have grown far faster than rebate payments. As a result, the share of its gross sales returned to payers as rebates declined from 51% to 39%.
Taken together, this year's manufacturer disclosures suggest that the gross-to-net bubble is growing more slowly—and even deflating in parts of the market. Meanwhile, the
Net Pricing Drug Channel (NPDC) is becoming visible in manufacturers’ pricing disclosures and financial statements.
