New cancer drug costs escalating for NHS
pharmafile | December 13, 2011 | News story | | Cancer, NHS, oncology
New oncology drugs are pushing up the overall costs of treating cancer, according to a new report.
The ‘Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment: A 2021 Projection’ report says that new treatments will push the average annual cost of treating a UK cancer patient up from £30,000 last year, to £40,000 in 2021.
To meet this demand the NHS will need an additional cancer diagnosis and treatment budget of £5.2 billion by this date, a 65% increase on what was being spent in 2010.
An ageing population will also exert extra pressure, the report added, which will increase overall cancer rates in the UK.
But the government has restricted spending on the NHS to just 0.4% over the next four years, and has also charged the health service with finding £20 billion in savings over the same period, meaning this increase might not be possible.
The report, carried out for private healthcare firm Bupa, said that new medical technologies are one of the principal drivers of cost in healthcare in the UK, and across the world.
The authors said: “In the case of cancer, innovation may include new approaches to early detection, the use of established drugs for new indications, new surgical devices, new methods to deliver radiation treatments and new technologies to diagnose and monitor patients.
“However, of all the new developments, drugs have experienced the greatest growth in the last decade, due to the increase in the number of cancer drugs that have been approved.”
Just over a quarter of the current expenditure goes on hospital inpatient costs, with almost a quarter (22%) going on the cost of surgery.
The third highest percentage (18%) goes on drug treatments, which includes the costs of giving the drug.
But over the past eight years newer technologies have been estimated to add around 3.7% per year to the total cancer expenditure, and this rate of increase is expected to apply in the coming decade as well, the authors said.
Personalised medicines
The report also looked at the increasingly common use of personalised medicines, which target specific cancers at a molecular level and often require accompanying diagnostic kits.
But there is currently much debate about how to determine the cost effectiveness of these new treatments, when to test patients, and how best to develop the infrastructure to support the widespread introduction of personalised medicines in the UK.
“While still at an early stage of development, this area of intensive activity is likely to give rise to an important funding challenge for cancer diagnosis and treatment over the next decade,” they said.
The report’s authors concluded: “If we do not address the rising cost of cancer, we are unlikely to be able to afford the desired and expected level of cancer diagnosis and treatment over the next 10 years and beyond.
“This possibility will mean that the UK’s cancer survival rate could fall even further behind that of other developed countries.”
But the Department of Health is disputing the figures, and said in a statement: “We do not recognise these figures. Over the past five years expenditure on cancer has grown no faster than costs for the NHS as a whole.
“This has been achieved despite increasing numbers and the introduction of new drugs and is a good example of how the NHS is working more efficiently as part of plans to save up to £20 billion by 2015.”
Ben Adams
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