What pharmacies paid for simvastatin, 2013 to 2026

In November 2013, retail pharmacies paid an average of 2.7 cents for a generic 20 mg simvastatin tablet, according to the National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC) files¹ that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services publishes for Medicaid. In October 2026 the latest NADAC files³ put the same tablet at 3.2 cents.

Half a cent is small money, and the direction depends on the starting point. November 2013 was a cheap month. By January 2014, the base month of the GxRadar generic price index, the figure was 3.6 cents, so against that base simvastatin is down 11 percent. Against October 2021 it is up 15 percent. Among the 43 drugs in GxRadar's price basket with figures for both January 2014 and October 2026, the median drug cost pharmacies about 44 percent less at the end of that span. Atorvastatin, the statin with the most Medicare Part D claims, fell about 85 percent from November 2013. Simvastatin started the period as the cheapest statin we track and now costs pharmacies more per tablet than atorvastatin does.

GxRadar analyzed CMS NADAC data from November 2013 through October 2026 and set them against FDA approval, recall and Medicare prescription records. What emerges is a record of a drug that was already near its price floor when the federal survey began, so the long competitive slide visible in other generics barely registers and smaller shocks stand out.

Thirteen years of the 20 mg tablet

Each figure below is GxRadar's monthly median of the weekly NADAC per-tablet rate for generic-classified 20 mg simvastatin tablets, using October of each year plus the first month of the series. The last column multiplies the rate by 365, a year of one tablet a day, to put the cents in more familiar units. The full monthly series is on our simvastatin page.

Across 156 months, the range is narrow. The figure never fell below 2.3 cents (April 2017) or rose above 4.1 cents (January 2024). From 2015 through 2022 it stayed between 2.3 and 3.1 cents in every month.

Some of the month-to-month movement is a feature of the survey. CMS builds NADAC from invoices that a random monthly sample of chain and independent retail pharmacies submits, according to its December 2024 methodology⁴. Beginning with the December 2024 updates, the same document says, monthly rates for generic drugs are calculated as a three-month moving average to moderate volatility, a change traced in the 2024 NADAC swings, so figures after that point are smoother by construction.

The 2023 step up

April 2023 brought the largest one-month move in the series, a 23 percent rise from 2.6 cents to 3.2 cents in the 2023 NADAC files². It kept climbing through the rest of the year and peaked at 4.1 cents in January 2024. It has eased since, but the October 2026 figure is still about a quarter above the 2.6 cents of March 2023.

FDA's recall records show activity in the same weeks. The openFDA enforcement data⁶ list 18 recall records for simvastatin products with report dates from March 8 to May 10, 2023. All 18 were Class II, and every one gave deviations from current good manufacturing practice as the reason. Four covered 20 mg tablets. No other calendar year in the data has as many single-ingredient simvastatin records. Our recall tracker draws on the same feed, and our explainer on CGMP rules covers what that recall reason usually signals.

Timing is as far as the data go. NADAC does not identify suppliers, and a recall record does not say what share of national supply the recalled lots represented, so GxRadar cannot show that the recalls moved the price. Simvastatin tablets were not on FDA's shortage list as of Oct. 30, 2026, according to the openFDA drug shortages feed⁷ behind our shortage tracker.

Fewer prescriptions, few new applicants

Simvastatin is a shrinking market. Medicare Part D plans paid for 20.4 million claims of generic simvastatin in 2020 and 15.1 million in 2024, according to CMS's Medicare Part D Spending by Drug⁸ data. Claims for generic atorvastatin rose over the same years, from 55.3 million to 73.3 million. The 2024 data list 16 manufacturers of generic simvastatin, against 30 for atorvastatin. Average gross spending per simvastatin claim was $8.40 in 2024, a figure that CMS says in its methodology⁹ includes ingredient cost, dispensing fees and sales tax but not manufacturer rebates.

Generic simvastatin dates to 2006. FDA approved the brand product's new drug application on Dec. 23, 1991, according to FDA's Drugs@FDA records. The first two abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) were approved on June 23, 2006, one of them ANDA 076052¹⁰. Six more followed on Dec. 20, 2006, exactly 180 days later. That gap matches the 180-day exclusivity federal law can give a first generic filer.

GxRadar counted ANDAs in FDA's Drugs@FDA data, downloaded through openFDA¹⁰, that cover a single-ingredient simvastatin 20 mg tablet.

Only three have been approved since 2011. Atorvastatin, by comparison, has 32 approved ANDAs covering its 20 mg tablet, 23 still marketed, as our atorvastatin price history showed. An approval is permission to sell, and our data cannot show how many approved simvastatin products are actually on pharmacy shelves.

FDA economists have tied lower prices to more competitors. In a December 2019 analysis¹¹, they found that with six or more generic makers, prices ran more than 95 percent below the brand price before generic entry. Simvastatin passed that threshold years ago. Whether thinner new entry and falling volume explain the small rise since 2022 is something these data cannot settle.

Against the other statins

GxRadar tracks four statin tablets. Simvastatin is the only one that costs pharmacies more than it did five years ago.

Atorvastatin first dipped below simvastatin in November 2023 and has been the cheaper of the two in every month since December 2025. Rosuvastatin entered our series at generic launch in July 2016, close to the brand price, and its fall is covered in our look at the first months after generic entry. It is one of three drugs in our piece on generics that got more expensive that cost more than five years earlier, though it remains below its January 2014 level.

What the figure leaves out

NADAC measures what pharmacies pay suppliers on the invoice. The CMS methodology says discounts and rebates not shown on the invoice are not counted, and pharmacies are asked to leave purchases made under the 340B discount program out of their survey submissions. NADAC also excludes the dispensing fee and says nothing about what a patient pays at the counter, which depends on the plan, the deductible and the pharmacy's own cash price. Our explainers on what NADAC measures and how pharmacies get paid cover that gap.

CMS posts each month's NADAC file on the first Monday on or after the 15th, according to the NADAC page on Medicaid.gov⁵. The next one is due Monday, Nov. 16, 2026, and will show whether simvastatin's figure holds near 3.2 cents.