Cancer costs on an ‘unaffordable trajectory’
pharmafile | September 28, 2011 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Cancer, healthcare costs
The cost of cancer is rising too fast with new treatments giving uncertain benefits, according to a new study.
A team of 37 researchers writing in The Lancet Oncology argue that there is a ‘culture of excess’ in new cancer treatments, and question the value of these treatments in relation to their growing cost.
“With an ageing global population and an endless conveyor belt of expensive new drugs and technologies and increasing financial pressures, the cost of cancer care in high-income countries is becoming unsustainable,” The Lancet Oncology said in a statement.
Its report says the global cost of new cancer cases hit £185 billion ($286 billion) in 2009.
This will only continue to rise, the researchers say, given that the global incidence of cancer is expected to double by 2030, to an estimated 27 million cases.
Their report also says that the majority of developed countries spend between 4-7% of their healthcare budgets on cancer.
“The issue that concerns economists and policymakers is not just the amount of money spent on healthcare, but also the rate of increase in healthcare spending or what has become known as the cost curve,” the researchers said.
Looking at the UK, the authors said that the number of cancer drugs available in Britain has risen from 35 in the 1970s to nearly 100 today, but the report warns they can be ‘exceedingly expensive’, adding: “Few treatments or tests are clear clinical winners, with many falling into the category of substantial cost for limited benefit.”
But lead author Professor Richard Sullivan of King’s College London told the BBC that it was not just pharmaceuticals that were driving up costs.
“Biomarkers, imaging and surgery are all getting through with very low levels of evidence – the hurdles are set too low,” he said.
“We’re on an unaffordable trajectory. We either need to manage and reduce the costs or the cost will increase and then inequality rises between rich and poor,” he said, adding that failure to manage costs could result in a ‘train crash’.
Ben Adams
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