New AARP Rx Price Watch Report Shows Overall Decline in Brand-Name Drug Prices in 2024, But Prices Remain High

WASHINGTON— AARP’s latest Rx Price Watch Report finds that retail prices for brand-name prescription drugs widely used by older Americans have increased faster than inflation almost every year since the report series began in 2004. In 2024, retail prices declined by an average of 1.4 percent—the first overall decrease in the report’s 20-year history—driven largely by targeted price cuts for certain insulins and asthma inhalers after years of advocacy and intense public scrutiny. Even so, most drug companies continued to raise prices, with three-quarters of brand-name drugs increasing in cost and nearly half of those increases exceeding inflation, highlighting why enforceable reforms like the first Medicare-negotiated drug prices that became available in 2026, not voluntary actions, are essential to lowering drug prices.

“Prescription drugs remain unaffordable for too many older Americans,” said Leigh Purvis, AARP Prescription Drug Principal and report co-author. “While it's encouraging to see an overall drop in prices, many brand name drug prices are still rising faster than inflation. It’s also important to note that the price decreases in 2024 were voluntary and could just as easily reverse in the future. That’s why legislative changes like Medicare drug price negotiation play such a critical role in ensuring that older Americans have affordable access to the prescription drugs that they need.” 

Additional key findings from the report include:  

• The average annual cost for a single brand name drug was nearly $13,000 in 2024. 
• For the average older Americans taking 4.5 prescriptions per month, the annual cost of drug therapy would exceed $58,000. 
• That amount is more than 30 percent higher than the median Medicare beneficiary income ($43,200). 
• If brand-name drug prices had risen at the rate of inflation since 2006, older Americans would be paying more than $10,000 less per drug per year in 2024. 
• For someone taking multiple medications, that translates into tens of thousands of dollars in additional costs. 

Read the full report here.

This report is the latest in the AARP Public Policy Institute’s Rx Price Watch series, which has tracked prescription drug price trends since 2004 and analyzes price changes for brand name, generic, and specialty drugs used by older Americans.

AARP spearheaded advocacy that led to the recently enacted bipartisan reforms to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) – which will increase transparency and accountability in the prescription drug supply chain – and continues to strongly support full implementation of the Medicare Prescription Drug Negotiation Program that is already lowering the out-of-pocket costs that older Americans pay at the pharmacy counter.