Prescription Drugs on the Uptick This Summer, With Lifestyle and Beauty Medications High on Americans’ Pharmacy Lists

This summer, as many enjoyed the welcome comfort brought to them by the COVID-19 vaccine, Americans started to venture back to their healthcare provider. And while much of the country sought out essential prescriptions, trends show that Americans may be prioritizing lifestyle and beauty medications more than they have in years.

According to research from GoodRx on a representative sample of nationwide claims (not GoodRx claims), prescription fills have begun to tick back up. But medications for some conditions are seeing larger spikes than the rest. Specifically, fills for acne, weight loss, and eyelash growth medications are higher than average. And on top of that, fills for depression and topical corticosteroids are also seeing larger-than-average increases, indicating what Americans may have been prioritizing as restrictions eased.

Our research below identifies four key trends in prescription fills this summer:

• Fills overall have started to increase.

• Lifestyle and beauty medications are high priority.

• Fills for sertraline (Zoloft), a medication used to treat anxiety and depression, are higher than they have been in years.

• Fills for topical corticosteroid creams, used to treat rashes and eczema among others, also remained high this summer. 

Overall, fills have begun to increase

One of the best ways to understand how Americans are interacting with the healthcare system is by measuring fill rates for low-refill drugs, or drugs that require a regular doctor’s prescription. 

Low-refill drugs, like Truvada (used to prevent HIV), do not have authorized refills, require consistent labs and tests for monitoring, and/or require a new prescription for every fill. As to be expected, as many stayed away from their providers during the pandemic, fills for these medications plummeted. But, in February, as vaccine distribution ramped up, so did fills for low-refill medications. 

In 2020, the fill rate for low-refill drugs decreased as much as 17% compared to 2019 levels, as the pandemic prevented many from visiting with their providers. Starting in February 2021, fills began to trend upwards towards pre-pandemic levels.

Lifestyle and beauty medications are more of a priority than ever 

This summer, fills for lifestyle medications spiked, likely as Americans took off their masks and felt comfortable enough to see their provider for a long-neglected non-essential visit. Specifically, fills for medications used to increase eyelash growth, treat acne, and aid in weight loss are higher than we have seen in years. 

The summer of thicker, fuller eyelashes

Latisse, known also as generic bimatoprost, is a popular medication used to grow longer and thicker eyelashes. During the pandemic, these medications saw almost no fills, as the length of one’s eyelashes wasn’t a priority. Now, though, people are more concerned about the length of their eyelashes than they have been in years, and in April 2021, Latisse showed more than a 2000% increase in fill rate.

No more mask acne 

Like eyelash growth, many Americans also focused their attention this summer on treating their acne. 

When lockdowns began in March and April of 2020, the fill rate for acne medications decreased by 11% compared to 2019. Sustained mask use causes skin irritation and breakouts, not to mention additional stressors associated with the pandemic. Likely as a response, in 2021, the fill rate for acne medications increased by 16% compared to 2019 levels.

Weight loss medication fills increase with ‘re-opening’ 

After the first wave of COVID-19 infections subsided in June 2020, the fill rate for weight loss prescriptions increased 4% compared to 2019. As lockdowns ended and vaccinations began, the fill rate for weight loss drugs soared to more than 35% relative to 2019. The changes in weight loss medications are driven by phentermine (Adipex-P), the most popular weight loss medication since 2015, according to GoodRx Research.

Fills for sertraline, used to treat anxiety and depression, are higher than ever 

As Americans have struggled with the social and economic effects of the pandemic, fills for sertraline (Zoloft), a popular antidepressant, have increased and remained high. Compared to 2019, fills increased by as much as 8% throughout 2020 and 2021.

This finding comes after a survey, done by GoodRx Research, found that the pandemic has made managing depression and anxiety harder than ever before. 

Fills for topical corticosteroid creams, used to treat rashes and eczema, among other conditions, also remained high this summer 

Before the development of COVID-19 vaccines, healthcare providers tried to treat the respiratory symptoms of COVID-19 with inhaled corticosteroids, including Pulmicort. This trend is evident in the 25% increase in the drug’s fill rate in March of 2021 from March 2019. However, that increase was not sustained and returned to more stable levels, with continued decreases in fill rate in 2021. 

On the other hand, topical corticosteroids, used to treat eczema, psoriasis, and dermatitis, have seen an increase in fill rate of up to 20% in 2021 compared to 2019.

Summing it all up

This summer, while fill rates were up across the board, lifestyle and beauty medications, sertraline, and topical corticosteroids saw major increases. These fills offer insight into what medical conditions Americans may be eager to treat as we emerge from months of quarantine.

Whether these increases will be sustained remains to be seen as we head into fall and COVID cases continue to rise due to the delta variant.  

Methodology

Using a representative sample of U.S. prescription fills, we calculated the monthly change in fill rate from 2019 by drug or drug group (defined below). To calculate change in fill rate from 2019, we first got the fills for a particular drug or drug group as a share of a stable basket of drugs (drugs without a seasonality component in prescribing patterns), for each month from January 2017 to July 2021. We indexed that fill share to the average monthly fill share for that drug or drug group in 2019. That index is subtracted by 1 and multiplied by 100 to get a change in fill rate (%) from 2019.

Definitions of drug or drug groups

Low-refill drugs: Low-refill drugs are drugs that typically do not have authorized refills. They are drugs that generally require engagement with a doctor, i.e. a doctor's visit.

Antibiotic medications: To look at trends for antibiotic drugs, we looked at all drug classes of antibiotics. For example, we included antibiotics like amoxicillin and antibiotic combinations like amoxicillin/potassium clavulanate.

Asthma medications: We included a broad group of drugs that treat asthma. This includes inhalers like albuterol (Ventolin) and oral medications like ​​montelukast.

Sertraline: We included all forms of the generic drug sertraline.

Latisse: We included Latisse and its generic equivalent, bimatoprost.

Corticosteroids medications (topical and inhaler forms): We explored corticosteroids drugs by separating the drugs into topical and inhaler forms. The topical forms include drugs like clobetasol, and the inhaler forms that include drugs like Qvar.

Acne medications: We included all drugs that can be used to treat acne, such as clindamycin.

Weight loss medications: We included all drugs that can be used for weight loss, such as phentermine.

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Written by:

Tori Marsh, MPH

Tori Marsh is GoodRx’s resident expert on prescription drug pricing, prescribing trends, and drug savings. She oversees the GoodRx drug database, ensuring that all drug information is accurate and up to date.

Analysis by:

Diane Li

Diane Li is an analyst and writer on the Research Team at GoodRx. In her day-to-day work, she is responsible for using data to disentangle healthcare trends for data stories and reporting.

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