NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At a time when cancer kills nearly 1,600 Americans every day, the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI) – a not-for-profit organization that advocates for consumer access to medical innovation – refuted a recent spate of challenges to the cost of innovative cancer drugs, calling for a balanced debate that considers the overall economic value of these therapies, including cost savings from less hospitalizations, emergency room visits, physician office appointments and home health care.
According to a new CMPI economic analysis, medical innovation netted more than $350 billion in savings to the healthcare system since 1990 from reduced hospitalizations, underscoring why determining the overall economic value is essential to a balanced debate. Other factors to assess include the increased productivity of and improved outlook for patients who are living better and longer lives.
CMPI also urged decision-makers to move away from a “one-size fits all” discussion of the costs of new cancer drugs to a recognition that many new cancer therapeutics are for rare cancers that require expensive phase-3 clinical trials involving hard-to-find trial subjects, while at the same time genomic studies and other new scientific predictors target drugs toward smaller groups of patients. Certain cancers are so rare that they are diagnosed in only a few hundred patients annually.
“The cost of developing a drug is the same whether for a million patients or 10 million, so a drug developed for a targeted group of patients costs more by definition,” said Robert Goldberg, Ph.D., Vice President and co-founder of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. “Nevertheless, because these therapeutics are more effective and often allow patients to remain productive members of society, their value is far greater than their cost.”
Among the figures CMPI cites:
Innovative cancer therapies account for less than 1% of healthcare spending (https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/Proj2011PDF.pdf)
What do we get for that 1%? New cancer medicines are responsible for 75% of the 50 million additional life-years people with cancer have gained since 1990. The value of those life-years is estimated to be about $5 trillion. (J Political Econ 2006: 114; 5; 871-904)
Innovative cancer treatments have added $4.9 trillion in economic value since 1990 (http://www.nber.org/papers/w15574. Accessed 4/2014)
Goldberg also compared cancer survival rates in the U.S. and Europe, underscoring the “return on investment” from greater access to innovative therapies among American cancer patients. Referencing a 2010 study comparing survival gains between 1983 and 1999, Goldberg reported that U.S. cancer patients survived approximately two years longer than those in Europe, generating $598 billion of additional value on average. (Source: Darius Lakdawalla et al., “An Economic Evaluation of the War on Cancer,” Journal of Health Economics 29 (2010):333-46).
“To fairly evaluate the cost effectiveness and who should or shouldn’t receive new cancer therapies, we have to look beyond price to consider the larger, long-term impact,” Goldberg said. “Focusing on cost alone is imprudent and misses the broad opportunities for substantial economic gains along with higher quality of life and increased productivity. A balanced view of the data is needed so that innovation continues to be incentivized, new therapies can be developed and long-term healthcare costs can actually decrease.”
Still, there are patients who cannot afford their drugs or the treatments they need. CMPI points out they represent about 5 to 15 percent of cancer patients.
Goldberg added: “That’s still five percent too many, but most of these cases can be resolved by insurance changes, such as not letting insurance companies reimburse less for oral cancer drugs than for IV drugs; intuitively that’s actually backwards. And we need to look at current cost-shifting policies that allow insurance companies to pass more costs onto the patients. Many pharmaceutical companies have patient support programs and we urge all patients who are having financial trouble filling their prescriptions to contact them directly.”
Innovative new therapeutics are being discovered faster than ever before, but CMPI points out the drug development process and, most important, the regulatory approval process can take longer than 20 years. Revamping the regulatory process can get essential drugs to patients faster and relieve pressures that force costs to rise, while not blaming innovation for the life–changing benefits and economic contributions that underlie the economics of healthcare.
About CMPI
The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization that seeks to advance the discussion and development of patient-centered healthcare.
