What pharmacies paid for tamsulosin and finasteride, 2013 to 2026

In the week ending Oct. 22, 2014, the federal government's benchmark for what a retail pharmacy paid for one generic tamsulosin 0.4 mg capsule stood at 23.4 cents. Three weeks later it was 54.1 cents. CMS's NADAC comparison file¹, which logs every change to the weekly rates, records the reason for that 131 percent jump as "Help Desk," meaning the rate was revised after an inquiry to the NADAC help desk that CMS runs through a contractor.

For a 30-capsule fill, the typical tamsulosin prescription in Medicaid's 2025 utilization data², GxRadar's monthly figures put the cost at $5.39 in October 2014 and $16.24 in November, according to the 2014 NADAC files⁴. That November figure is still the highest in our series. By October 2026 the same 30 capsules cost pharmacies $1.48 (about 4.9 cents a capsule), 91 percent below the peak, according to the 2026 files⁷.

Tamsulosin and finasteride 5 mg are the two prostate drugs in GxRadar's 47-drug price basket, and both are widely used. Medicaid alone paid for about 2.1 million tamsulosin prescriptions and 381,000 finasteride prescriptions in 2025, the same utilization data show. Their price histories since 2013 share an end point, a far lower acquisition cost, but took different routes to it. This piece sets out what a typical fill of each cost pharmacies year by year, when FDA approved their first generics, how many generic applications are on record, and what the public record shows about tamsulosin's 2014 spike. All figures are acquisition costs, not counter prices, and none is adjusted for inflation.

Two drugs for the same condition

Tamsulosin is an alpha blocker "used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia," an enlarged prostate, according to the National Library of Medicine's MedlinePlus drug page⁹. Finasteride is a 5-alpha reductase inhibitor used for the same condition and, at a lower strength, for male pattern hair loss, its MedlinePlus entry¹⁰ says. GxRadar tracks the 5 mg finasteride tablet. The 1 mg tablet is a separate product with its own NADAC rate and is not part of these figures. Questions about either drug's use belong with a pharmacist or prescriber.

What a fill cost, year by year

Each figure is GxRadar's monthly median of the weekly NADAC per-unit rate for generic-classified products, multiplied by 30, the typical fill for both drugs in the Medicaid data. The earliest month is from the 2013 NADAC file³, the first year CMS published final rates.

Both fell further than the basket as a whole. The GxRadar generic price index was 47.4 in October 2026 (January 2014 = 100), about 53 percent down, against 66 percent for tamsulosin and 61 percent for finasteride. Finasteride's highest month was February 2014, at $7.33 for 30 tablets, and its lowest was February 2023, at $1.78. Tamsulosin's lowest was December 2024, at $1.35, during the 2024 swings in the NADAC series. Since then CMS has calculated monthly generic rates as a three-month moving average, under its December 2024 methodology⁸, and both lines have been flatter. Tamsulosin's average month-to-month move was 6.5 percent in 2024 and 2.3 percent from January 2025 through October 2026, by GxRadar's count; finasteride's fell from 4.9 percent to 1.3 percent.

When the generics arrived

The dates and counts come from FDA's Drugs@FDA¹¹ records, as published in the openFDA download¹² updated Nov. 2, 2026, counting only applications that cover the basket strength. "Listed as marketed" means at least one product under the application has a prescription marketing status. It is not a measure of who is shipping product. The drug pages for tamsulosin and finasteride count every strength and form, so their totals differ slightly.

Finasteride's first generic was approved 14 years to the day after the brand. Tamsulosin's came almost 13 years after its brand, with one approval on March 2, 2010, six more on April 27 and another in July. How patents and exclusivities set those dates is listed for each drug in FDA's Orange Book¹³, which our Orange Book explainer covers. The pattern after entry is the familiar one. FDA's economists found in a 2019 analysis¹⁴ that generic prices fall furthest once several makers are selling, with prices more than 95 percent below the pre-generic brand price at six or more. Our explainer on why prices fall as competitors enter walks through it.

The tamsulosin spike of 2014

Tamsulosin had looked like a textbook generic. At a Senate subcommittee hearing on Nov. 20, 2014¹⁵, testimony in the record used it as an example of a generic whose price "performed as expected in the market." Tamsulosin entered "with an actual retail transaction price of about $3.55 per day of therapy," the testimony said, and the price "rapidly declined to under $0.50 per day," about 10 percent of its average wholesale price, in data running through 2013.

The NADAC record for the same autumn shows something else. The comparison file lists four steps in the per-capsule rate:

The December survey rate, built from new invoices, came in only 12 percent below the help desk figure, and monthly survey rates stayed between about 46 and 52 cents a capsule through June 2015, according to the comparison file and the 2015 NADAC files⁵. The 30-capsule cost stayed above $10 for ten straight months, November 2014 through August 2015, then fell for most of the next decade. By October 2021 it was $1.90, according to the 2021 files⁶.

The public data record the size and timing of the increase. They do not record why pharmacies' invoice costs rose, and GxRadar has not found a federal document that explains this drug's increase. A 2016 review by HHS planning staff¹⁷ pointed in general terms to small markets, mergers and market exits as drivers of that era's spikes, which our piece on the spikes of 2013 to 2015 covers. How a pharmacy asks for a review like the one in November 2014 is the subject of our explainer on NADAC rate reviews.

Recalls and shortages

Neither drug is on FDA's current shortage list, according to our shortage tracker. FDA's enforcement records, published through openFDA¹⁶, list four recall entries for single-ingredient tamsulosin capsules since 2012, all Class II, two of them for dissolution failures in 2019. They list five for finasteride 5 mg tablets since 2014, none Class I. Our recall database has the full records.

What to watch

Tamsulosin's newest generic application was approved in May 2025, the first new one for the 0.4 mg capsule since 2022. Finasteride 5 mg has had no new ANDA approval since 2017. CMS posts the next monthly NADAC file in mid-November, and both drug pages update when it lands.