Medication RescueⓇ: Inventory Insights

Every medication donated to RemediChain provides a second chance to a patient in need. The organization is located in Memphis – which means, per Tennessee law, RemediChain can legally accept a variety of medications from anywhere in the United States. Some of the treatments available in our current inventory include medications to treat conditions in a variety of categories, such as: 

• Oncology 
• Endocrine and Hormonal
• Cardiovascular (including anti-coagulants and more)
• Immunologic and Autoimmune
• Neurological (including Multiple Sclerosis-related medications)
• HIV and Infectious Disease
• Chronic Diseases

Exactly what kind of donated medication is available for patients in need? The best way to find out if we have the medication you need is to fill out our patient request form. Click here to access that. 

Here’s a snapshot of what we rescued last year.

RemediChain’s Top 10 Most-Rescued Medications – 2025

Value by Average Wholesale Price (AWP)

1. Verzenio (abemaciclib) – $1.84 million
2. TAGRISSO (osimertinib) – $695,400
3. Lenvima (lenvatinib) – $588,000
4. Ibrance (palbociclib) – $453,600
5. Lynparza (olaparib) – $350,700
6. CABOMETYX (cabozantinib) – $227,700
7. LONSURF(trifluridine/tipiracil) – $198,400
8. BRAFTOVI (encorafenib) – $185,200
9. Vyndamax (tafamidis) – $171,700
10. NUBEQA (darolutamide) – $164,600

Quantity by Number of Doses 

1. Creon (pancrelipase) – 9,600
2. Verzenio (abemaciclib) – 6,580
3. Lynparza (olaparib) – 2,520
4. ELIQUIS (apixaban) – 1,952
5. MEKTOVI (binimetinib) – 1,800
6. Lanthanum carbonate – 1,614
7. NUBEQA (darolutamide) – 1,440
8. BRAFTOVI (encorafenib) – 1,410
9. Zenpep (pancrelipase) – 1,388
10. ERLEADA (apalutamide) – 1,320

Where does donated medication come from? In short, because RemediChain can accept eligible medications from anywhere in the United States, they come from all over! But here’s a sampling of our most prolific donor states.

RemediChains Top 10 Donors by State – 2025

Number of Donations 

1. Tennessee – 212
2. North Carolina – 146
3. California – 102
4. Maryland – 84
5. Illinois – 79
6. Florida – 77
7. Michigan – 73
8. New York – 66
9. Indiana – 56
10. Kentucky – 51

Value of Donations (AWP) 

1. North Carolina – $1.04 million
2. Tennessee – $1 million
3. Illinois – $791,500
4. Kentucky – $476,500
5. Indiana – $371,200
6. Maryland – $292,400
7. California – $277,700
8. New York – $253,800
9. Massachusetts – $243,800
10. Virginia – $223,800

Why Do Prescription Medications Go Unused?

For too long, this question has gone unanswered by health care systems in the United States. Fragmented efforts to quantify waste do not paint an accurate picture of the scale of the problem, and there has, to our knowledge, never been an attempt to define why the waste exists. 

RemediChain set out to change that. In prior years, our insight into the why was anecdotal. But in 2025, we made intentional changes to our rescue process to capture additional information that will help make medication rescue viable, safe and accessible to patients across the United States and – eventually – across the globe. The information we tracked is statistically significant and provides in-depth analysis of trends related to medication waste. For more information beyond what is included in this report, please contact us. We’d love to support you in spreading the word or improving policy in your area.

Primary Drivers of Medication Surplus – 2025

Nearly half (49.8%) of all medication surplus stems from treatment modification and/or patient mortality – factors largely outside patients’ control that represent systemic opportunities for intervention. 

Some donors cited more than one reason the medication had gone unused, so percentages do not add up to 100.

1. Treatment modification – 29.8%
2. Patient mortality – 20%
3. Adverse drug reactions – 11.7%
4. Health condition resolved/improved – 9.7%
5. Over-dispensing (patient received a multi-month supply) – 8.4%
6. Other – 7.5%
7. Non-adherence – 3.6%
8. Medication errors – 1.1%

What’s the Solution for Medication Waste?

Medication waste is nuanced. In some cases, there are clear ways to reduce it – by correcting the number of overfills from pharmacies, for example, or in health plans covering smaller initial fills of new medications. The latter could ensure that patients are able to tolerate new prescriptions, and that they’re effective, before sending several months’ worth of medication from the start.

But plenty of medications are available for reasons that cannot be avoided, such as in the case of a patient who passed away prior to using their prescriptions. In those cases, the best answer is Medication Rescue. There are a number of opportunities to support rescue, which both reduces unnecessary waste and ensures that any excess medication is redirected to patients in need. It’s a win-win. 

Here’s how you can support Medication Rescue:

1. Donate your unused medications. Periodically go through your medicine cabinets and fill out our form for any unused medications that may be eligible for donation. 

2. Spread the word. Let other people know about the opportunity to donate medications with RemediChain using our available materials. If you have an organization interested in co-branding any promotional materials, please contact us.

3. Support legal initiatives to expand rescue efforts and patients’ ability to access necessary medication. These days, many states do have laws to allow medication donation in some way. And they’re expanding all the time. (Here’s how access grew in 2025.) We look forward to the day when it’s universally accepted, and when donating unused medication becomes a societal habit, not just a one-off idea – and legal support for programs like ours is a crucial step in that process.