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The growing popularity of Dupixent contributed to a 30.3% increase in commercial health plan spending on dermatology specialty drugs in 2025, according to a new drug trend report from Navitus Health Solutions, a fee-based pharmacy benefits manager.
The plans that Navitus tracks spent $6.03 per member per month on specialty drugs for skin conditions of all kinds in 2025.
Increased use of the drugs accounted for 29.3 percentage points of the growth in specialty skin drug spending.
Rising prices accounted for 0.8 percentage points of the spending growth.
Dupixent drove up the dermatology specialty drug cost trend because insurers are covering the drug for more different types of conditions, and physicians are prescribing it more often because it's leading to big improvements in many patients' conditions, according to Navitus.
Overall commercial plan drug spending at the plans in the Navitus analysis rose 8.4% between 2024 and 2025, to $120.08 per member per month, with increased use of the drugs contributing 3.2 percentage points of the overall growth and an increase in the average cost of the drugs used contributing 5.2 percentage points of the growth.
The overall increase between 2024 and 2025 was up from an increase of 7% between 2023 and 2024.
"The overall trend reflected both the continuing evolution of therapies and the choices that members and prescribers made as new treatment options emerged," Navitus says.
Although per-member spending rose rapidly at some plans that use Navitus, spending fell or rose by less than 5% at 76% of the plans, the company says.
What it means: Plans are having some success with getting spending on prescription drugs under control, but pockets of pain remain, especially for plans that want to offer participants access to new, potentially life-changing brand-name drugs.
The data: Navitus serves employers, unions, government plans, insurance companies and health care systems.
The new drug cost trend report reflects spending at commercial health plans that use Navitus PBM services.
Specialty drugs: Specialty drugs are expensive medications made using complicated techniques, such as processes involving living organisms, that treat serious chronic health problems, such as cancer or hemophilia. Patients may get the drugs using quick injections or through intravenous systems that infuse drugs into their veins over a period of minutes or hours.
Dupixent: Dupixent is a brand-name version of the monoclonal antibody dupilumab.
The drug can help patients cope with skin conditions like eczema and with inflammatory conditions like asthma and inflammation of the esophagus.
The typical full cost of a prefilled Dupixent syringe for adult patients who pay cash and do not qualify for any special discounts ranges from $3,600 to $4,200 per month, according to MedicalCostInfo.com.
Non-specialty drugs: The non-specialty drug category with the biggest increase in spending was the migraine product category.
Spending on migraine drugs rose 24%, to $3.01 per member per month, because of "increased utilization of high-cost brand agents such as Ubrelvy," according to Navitus.
The biggest cost driver: The class of drug in the report with the highest total amount of plan spending was the category for "targeted immunomodulators," including Humira and Stelara.
Those specialty drugs drove $22.16 per member per month in spending. The net cost of the high-cost immune system control drugs fell 2% between 2024 and 2025. Use of the drugs increased 8.4%, but the cost of drugs fell 9.6%, thanks in part to efforts by PBMs, insurers and employer plans to encourage patients to use more affordable "biosimilars" rather than the original, very expensive versions of the drugs.
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