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Showing posts from April, 2011

The 10 Most Prescribed Drugs

The 10 most prescribed drugs in the U.S. aren't the drugs on which we spend the most, according to a report from the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. The institute is the public face of IMS, a pharmaceutical market intelligence firm. Its latest report provides a wealth of data on U.S. prescription drug use. Continuing a major trend, IMS finds that 78% of the nearly 4 billion U.S. prescriptions written in 2010 were for generic drugs (both unbranded and those still sold under a brand name). In order of number of prescriptions written in 2010, the 10 most-prescribed drugs in the U.S. are: Hydrocodone (combined with acetaminophen) -- 131.2 million prescriptions Generic Zocor (simvastatin), a cholesterol-lowering statin drug -- 94.1 million prescriptions Lisinopril (brand names include Prinivil and Zestril), a blood pressure drug -- 87.4 million prescriptions Generic Synthroid (levothyroxine sodium), synthetic thyroid hormone -- 70.5 million prescriptions Generic ...