Trends in National Pharmaceutical Expenditure in Korea during 2011 - 2020

Yujeong Kim; Jungmi Chae; Seohee Shin; Gayoung Jo; Jihye Shin; Byungsoo Kim; Dong-Sook Kim; Jin Yong Lee

doi:10.3947/ic.2023.0028

Trends in National Pharmaceutical Expenditure in Korea during 2011 - 2020

Infect Chemother. 2023 Jun;55(2):237-246. doi: 10.3947/ic.2023.0028.

Authors

Yujeong Kim¹, Jungmi Chae¹, Seohee Shin¹, Gayoung Jo¹, Jihye Shin¹, Byungsoo Kim², Dong-Sook Kim^#^{1

3}, Jin Yong Lee^#^{1

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Health Insurance Review and Assessment (HIRA) Research Institute, Wonju, Korea.
² Drug Utilization Review (DUR) Operation Division, DUR Department, Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA), Wonju, Korea.
³ Department of Health Administration, College of Nursing and Health, Kongju National University, Gongju, Korea. sttone@hanmail.net.
⁴ Department of Health Policy and Management, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
⁵ Public Healthcare Center, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Korea. jylee2000@gmail.com.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to identify the trends in pharmaceutical expenditure (PE), share of PE in health expenditure (HE), and trends in expenditure by pharmacological groups (ATC level 1 classification) in Korea for a 10-year period (2011 - 2020) and compare the data with those of other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Using the findings, we determined the current status of pharmaceutical expenditure (PE) management in Korea and derived the implications for establishing future macroscopic policies on PE.

Materials and methods: We analyzed the OECD Health Statistics and the Korean national health insurance claims database from January 2011 through December 2020. The outcome measures were HE, PE, and pharmaceutical sales data for ATC level 1 medicines from OECD Health Statistics data during 2011 - 2020. As OECD collects limited ATC level 1 data, we used the HIRA health insurance claims data for PEs of ATC level-1 classification, including D, L, P, and S.

Results: PE in Korea increased by 38.5% from 19.9 billion USD in 2011 to 27.6 billion USD in 2020, whereas the share of PE in HE decreased by 6.3%p from 26.4% in 2011 to 20.1% in 2020. In 2020, Korea ranked third in PE per capita (760.9 USD PPP) and had the highest share of PE (20.1%) among the 19 OECD countries studied. By ATC level 1 class, the highest PE was A (alimentary tract and metabolism) at 4.3 billion USD, and L (antineoplastic and immunomodulating agents) had the highest increase at 13.4%; in contrast, J (anti-infectives for systemic use) had the lowest increase in annual average PE at -0.2% in 2020 relative to 2011. Among the 17 OECD countries, Korea had the highest and the third-highest expenditures for ATC codes A and J, respectively.

Conclusion: PE in Korea has continued to increase between 2011 and 2020, indicating the need for macroscopic management of PE. Our results on PE by ATC code may help health authorities in establishing future policies on PE.

Keywords: Comparison with OECD countries ATC Level 1 classification; Korea; National Pharmaceutical expenditure; Trends.