Expenditures on health care in the United States have been much in the news for years now. The prices for prescription drugs are among the fastest growing of the segments of this overall industry. And yet, prescription drugs make up only around 10 percent of all expenditures on health care.

Today’s market size is the size of the market for prescription drugs sold through retail outlets in 2000 and 2010. In 2000 58 percent of the prescription drugs sold through retail outlets were brand name drugs. In 2010 brand-name drugs accounted for 29 percent of those sales.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2000 and 2010
Market size: $145.57 and $266.39 billion respectively
Source: Table 159. Retail Prescription Drug Sales,” Statistical Abstract of the United States 2012, page 113, U.S. Census Bureau, September 27, 2011, available here.
Original source: National Association of Chain Drug Stores
Posted on January 24, 2012