Medicines
Endocrine System
Drugs used in diabetes
Acarbose

Acarbose

Name: Acarbose NHS prescribing in England
Creator: PharmaInsight
License: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Endocrine System Drugs used in diabetes BNF 0601023A0

Data updated May 2026 Download CSV

Acarbose was ranked 797th of 1,796 medicines by items in May 2026, with 1,616 items, down 4.1% on a year earlier.

1,616items -4.1%

Dispensed in May 2026

16,458items

Rolling 12 months

£33,542

Net ingredient cost · May 2026

Figure 1. Acarbose: national items dispensed by month

Source: NHSBSA Prescription Cost Analysis, to May 2026

Embed this chart Download CSV

Use this chart on your site

Free to reuse anywhere, including commercially — on your own site, in a report or in an article. Keep the credit link with it and you are done.

#use-this-chart [role="tablist"] { display: none !important; } #use-this-chart [data-pane] { display: block !important; }

A live chart that updates itself when next month's data lands. The credit line is part of the snippet.

<iframe src="https://pharmainsight.co.uk/embed/charts/acarbose-0601023a0-monthly-items" width="720" height="440" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" title="Acarbose: NHS items dispensed in England, by month"></iframe>
<p style="font-size:13px;margin-top:4px">Chart: <a href="https://pharmainsight.co.uk/medicines/acarbose-0601023a0">PharmaInsight</a> · Data: NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset</p>

Preview the embed

An SVG with the title and credit built in. Vector, so it stays sharp at any size in a slide deck or a print layout, and it opens in Illustrator, Figma, Inkscape or any browser.

Download SVG

Paste this beneath the chart if you are using the image rather than the embed.

Chart: <a href="https://pharmainsight.co.uk/medicines/acarbose-0601023a0">PharmaInsight</a> · Data: NHSBSA English Prescribing Dataset

Chart licensed under CC BY 4.0 — attribution link to PharmaInsight required. Underlying data © NHSBSA, Open Government Licence v3.0.

At a glance

Therapeutic class Drugs used in diabetes
Presentations 3 shown
Average cost / item £20.76
Year on year Down 4.1% on a year earlier

What this is

Net ingredient cost is the list price before discounts and dispensing fees, not what the NHS finally pays.

Where Acarbose is dispensed

The regions and dispensing practices with the highest Acarbose volumes.

Top regions

Top dispensing practices

Auckland Medical Group 77
Bridge Cottage Surgery 64
Wickham Surgery 56
Rockliffe Court Surgery 55
Peartree Surgery & West Horndon Surgery 53
The Orchard Partnership 52

Regional volumes from NHSBSA Prescription Cost Analysis; practice volumes from NHS dispensing data.

Compare Acarbose with

Other medicines in the same BNF section, by prescribing volume.

Acarbose vs Metformin hydrochloride Acarbose vs Dapagliflozin Acarbose vs Gliclazide Acarbose vs Glucose blood testing reagents Acarbose vs Empagliflozin

Download this data

The monthly series for Acarbose is in this page's CSV. For the ranked national series across every medicine, with the method and caveats documented, see the most-prescribed medicines dataset in our open data catalogue.

Presentation	BNF code	Items	Net ingredient cost
Acarbose 50mg tablets	0601023A0AAAAAA	1,144	£20,124
Acarbose 100mg tablets	0601023A0AAABAB	471	£13,389
Glucobay 100mg tablets	0601023A0BBADAB	1	£29