What pharmacies paid for warfarin and clopidogrel, 2013 to 2026

In July 2014, retail pharmacies paid an average of 8.2 cents for a generic 5 mg warfarin tablet, according to the National Average Drug Acquisition Cost survey¹ that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services runs for Medicaid. Nine months later, in April 2015, the figure was 20.7 cents, according to the 2015 NADAC files².

Over the same stretch, the price of a generic 75 mg clopidogrel tablet went the other way, sliding from 11.8 cents in February 2014 to 8.8 cents by October 2015.

Warfarin, an anticoagulant, and clopidogrel, an antiplatelet drug, are two long-established generic blood thinners, and their federal price records could hardly be more different. GxRadar analyzed CMS NADAC files from November 2013 through October 2026 and set them against FDA application records. Warfarin, generic for decades, jumped in 2014 and has never returned to its 2013 level, which puts it among the generics that cost pharmacies more than they did in 2014. Clopidogrel, which went generic in 2012, has lost more than half its price, most of it in two separate bursts.

Thirteen years, two tablets

Each figure is GxRadar's monthly median of the weekly NADAC per-tablet rate for generic-classified products, beginning with the 2013 file³. Full monthly series are on our warfarin and clopidogrel pages.

Source: GxRadar analysis of CMS NADAC weekly files, November 2013 to October 2026. Generic-classified rows only. Not adjusted for inflation.

Warfarin's 2014 jump

The warfarin increase came in four steps. The monthly figure rose 17 percent in August 2014, 41 percent in September, 16 percent in October and 17 percent in November. By April 2015 it stood at about two and a half times its July 2014 level.

Warfarin was far from alone that year. A January 2016 issue brief from HHS's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, "Understanding Recent Trends in Generic Drug Prices"⁸, reported that about two-thirds of generic products appear to have had price declines in 2014, while "some segments of the market have experienced large price increases." It listed possible explanations including "small markets with limited entry," mergers and acquisitions, and market exits. The brief did not single out warfarin, and the NADAC files record what pharmacies paid without saying why. Our piece on the generic price spikes of 2013 to 2015 covers that period across many drugs.

What stands out is how slowly warfarin came back down. It took until mid-2019 to get back to about 10 cents, and from then through 2025 it stayed between 8.5 and 11.9 cents. At 8.9 cents in October 2026 it was 57 percent below its 2015 peak and still 18.5 percent above November 2013. Measured against its full-year 2014 average of 11.0 cents, which already includes the first months of the spike, the October 2026 figure was lower.

Who makes them

FDA application records explain part of the contrast. GxRadar counted approved abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) that include each exact tablet strength in FDA's Drugs@FDA data, queried through openFDA⁹, leaving out tentative approvals.

Source: GxRadar count from FDA Drugs@FDA via openFDA, downloaded November 2026.

Warfarin's brand application dates to 1954, and the openFDA record for warfarin sodium⁹ lists every strength of the brand tablet as discontinued. Of 12 ANDAs ever approved for the 5 mg tablet, six still carry a prescription marketing status. Ten of the 12 have an approval date in the data, and no two of those fall on the same day.

Clopidogrel's record looks like a classic patent-expiry launch. One ANDA for the 75 mg tablet was approved in January 2008, but the broad entry came on May 17, 2012, when FDA approved seven more on a single day, according to the openFDA record for clopidogrel bisulfate⁹. Approvals continued intermittently through September 2024, and 16 ANDAs for the strength are still listed as marketed. The brand product remains on the market under its own application.

That gap in supplier counts matters for price. FDA economists reported in a 2019 analysis¹⁰ that generic prices fell more than 95 percent below the pre-entry brand price once six or more makers competed, and that the declines were much smaller with one or two. Warfarin has six marketed ANDAs for this strength, clopidogrel 16. A count of approved applications is not a count of companies actively shipping product, though, and FDA's records do not track market share.

Clopidogrel's plateau, then a second slide

Clopidogrel's price did most of its early falling between 2014 and 2017. From January 2018 through March 2024 the monthly figure stayed between 6.0 and 6.9 cents, a span of more than six years with almost no net movement.

The second slide began in 2025. After peaking at 6.2 cents in April 2025, according to the 2025 NADAC files⁵, the figure fell to 4.7 cents by August 2026, the lowest in the series. In October 2026 it was 4.71 cents, 25 percent below October 2024. Six ANDAs for the strength were approved from 2017 to 2024, including two in 2023 and one in September 2024, though the timing alone does not show they caused the decline.

The 2024 wobble

Both tablets show the same short-lived swings that ran through nearly every generic in the federal data in 2024, which GxRadar traced in the 2024 NADAC swings. Warfarin fell 11 percent in July 2024 to 8.5 cents, recovered to 10.1 cents by October, then dropped again in November. Clopidogrel dipped to 5.4 cents in December 2024 before rebounding in early 2025, according to the 2024 NADAC files⁴.

CMS attributed the volatility to fluctuations in pharmacy participation in its monthly survey and, starting with the December 2024 rate updates, moved generic NADAC rates to a three-month moving average, according to its December 2024 methodology⁷. Our explainer on how NADAC is calculated covers the survey behind the rates. Monthly figures since then are smoother by design.

What a year of tablets cost a pharmacy

At the October 2026 rates in the 2026 NADAC files⁶, 365 warfarin 5 mg tablets cost a pharmacy $32.48 in ingredient cost and 365 clopidogrel 75 mg tablets cost $17.17. At warfarin's April 2015 peak, the same 365 tablets would have cost $75.65. Warfarin doses vary widely from person to person (it is one of the narrow therapeutic index drugs, where small dose differences matter), so a year of one strength is only an arithmetic yardstick. It does not describe a typical bill.

None of those figures includes the dispensing fee or the markups that set what a patient pays. Our explainers on what NADAC measures and why the same generic costs different amounts cover that gap. The current monthly series for both drugs, and for 45 other generics, are on the GxRadar price pages.