Medicare spent more money on the heartburn drug Nexium in 2013 than on any other prescription medication.
The federal program’s Part D prescription program, which encompasses 68 percent of all Medicare enrollees, spent roughly $2.5 billion in 2013 on the drug, according to new data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Thursday.
Second place in spending by the nine-year-old prescription drug program was asthma treatment Advair Diskus, at a little more than $2.2 billion, and cholesterol drug Crestor, at $2.2 billion.
Rounding out the top five are the antipsychotic Abilify ($2.1 billion) and the antidepressant Cymbalta ($1.9 billion).
The data CMS released do not take into account generic drug spending, which accounts for 76.3 percent of Part D prescriptions in 2013.
CMS released the data as part of an effort to be more transparent. Officials said the report was not issued in relation to the skyrocketing cost of some prescription specialty drugs.
“Beneficiaries’ personal information is not available,” according to acting CMS administrator Andy Slavitt in a press release.
