The annual growth rate in spending on drugs may be cut in halfover the next five years as people opt for less expensive genericmedicines over brand-name treatments, a health-care research groupsaid today.

While global expenditures for medicines will still reach almost$1.1 trillion by 2015, the annual compounded growth rate may bereduced to 3 to 6 percent through 2015, compared with 6.2 percentover the last five years, according to the IMS Institute forHealthcare Informatics in Parsippany, New Jersey. Still, emergingmarkets will double their purchases to as much as $315 billion, theinstitute said in a report.

Expiring patents on branded medicines will yield $98 billion innet savings to government health plans and commercial insurersduring the next five years, with the U.S. providing the biggestincrease in spending for generic alternatives, the institute said.Market share for branded drugs will drop to 53 percent from 64percent last year, according to the report.