American spending on prescription drugs to surpass $1 trillion this year

Americans spent more money on prescription drugs than ever before in 2025, and this year, prescription drug spending is expected to exceed $1 trillion for the first time.

The increased spending is a result of more people using medications – primarily GLP-1, weight-loss drugs – rather than from rising costs, the annual report from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists says.

In 2025, drug spending rose nearly 13% to $915 billion, with expenditures on tirzepatide, branded as Zepbound, and semaglutide, branded as Ozempic and Wegovy, at nearly $60 billion each. The GLP-1 figures – totaling about 14% of all U.S. drug spending last year – are likely an underestimate, because they do not include people paying for them out-of-pocket, the report said.

“GLP-1s have fundamentally reshaped the drug-spending landscape,” said Eric Tichy, the report’s lead author and division chair of supply chain management at Mayo Clinic. “At $132 billion, this single class of drugs accounted for nearly one-third of all growth and is moving the entire market. And we are still on the steep part of the curve.”

A blood thinner used to help prevent blood clots and strokes, called apixaban, had the third highest spending at $29 billion.

Expenditures were also high in 2025 for injectable cancer drugs and for new treatments for rare diseases like ALS, according to the report.