Hidden in Your Medicine Cabinet

Investment U View in browser IU Plus | Courses | Master Plan | IU Bookstore Saturday, July 4, 2015 Chart of the Week: $400 Billion Hidden in Your Medicine Cabinet Rachel Gearhart, Managing Editor, The Oxford Club If you're like most Americans, your medicine cabinet is filled with drugs that treat high blood pressure, pain and high cholesterol. (Better watch those hot dogs and chips during today's Fourth of July festivities...) You might feel like you're paying an arm and a leg for these prescriptions. But, surprisingly, those types of medications aren't what's costing consumers the most money... The bulk of out-of-pocket pharmaceutical spending goes toward specialty drugs. These drugs require special administration and monitoring and are used to treat complex conditions. As a result, they can be extremely costly. Today's chart looks at the change in spending on traditional and specialty drugs over the past nine years. As you can see, consumers spent 30% more on specialty drugs last year than they did in 2013. How is this possible? Easy. Just look at the price tags... Gilead Sciences' (Nasdaq: GILD) Hepatitis C treatment drug Harvoni costs $94,500 for a 12-week treatment. Genentech's cancer treatment drug Avastin costs $5,560 for two vials. Biogen's (Nasdaq: BIIB) multiple sclerosis drug Avonex costs $1,363 for just one injection. And this high-level pricing isn't about to stop. Consumer spending on specialty drugs is expected to reach $400 billion by 2020. Of course, while specialty drugs are costly for consumers, they can be extremely profitable for the companies that create them... In 2014, Harvoni and its predecessor Sovaldi made more than $12.4 billion for Gilead. Shares of the company ended the year 25% higher than where they started. So it's easy to see why more and more companies are racing to develop specialty drugs... and why more and more investors are scrambling to get in on the action. If you're in that camp, check out The Oxford Club's latest free webinar, featuring Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld and industry experts Nicholas Vardy and Dr. Stephen Naylor. In it, they discuss a huge shift taking place right now in big pharma and biotech... and the companies most likely to come out on top. Click here to watch. Click here to post a comment on InvestmentU.com The one reason some stocks rise BIG and FAST... Recently, the little-known signal above has heralded some of the most extraordinary windfalls in the market, including a 1,024% jump in Chipotle... a 288% rise in Tesla Motors... and a 961% spike in Under Armour. Now, for the first time ever, we're revealing its secrets... Click here to continue. We Also Recommend... How an 88-Year-Old Tortoise Won the Investing Game by Marc Lichtenfeld Wednesday, July 1, 2015 Are you taking on too much risk investing for income? There's an easier way... one that's been proven over decades to work. Read On... The Beauty - and Utter Failure - of This Popular Strategy by Alexander Green Monday, June 29, 2015 There's a reason every investment product comes with the same boilerplate: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." Because it's true. Read On... Opportunities in a Low Interest Rate Environment by Andrew Snyder Sunday, June 28, 2015 The longer central banks keep rates artificially low, the harder it will be for them to raise rates. But as investors, the situation is not pure doom and gloom. Far from it. Read On... You are receiving this email because you subscribed to Investment U. To unsubscribe from Investment U or to manage your account, click here To cancel by mail or for any other subscription issues, write us at: Investment U Attn: Member Services 105 West Monument Street Baltimore, MD 21201 Keep the emails you value from falling into your spam folder. Whitelist Investment U. Question? Comment? Need help? Contact us here. 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