One of the obstacles when incorporating new generations of therapies is the economic cost. Therefore, in many cases, in addition to clinical trials that verify its effectiveness and safety, data must be presented to support and justify the disbursement. A recent study carried out by Professor Frank R. Lichtenberg, from Columbia University (USA)which has just been published in the magazine Value in Healthhas put on the table how pharmaceutical innovation has had an impact on reducing cancer mortality in Spanish patients.
The conclusion of Lichtenberg’s pharmacoeconomic study is that new cancer treatments managed to reduce cancer deaths in Spain by almost 30% in the last decade.
The Columbia University expert explains in the article that “supporting the survival of cancer patients is usually extremely expensive, especially in advanced stages that correspond to the indications for several innovative drugs.” And also that these “require approximately 12 times more research and development than other medical expenses.”
With these two points of view to take into account, the study has shown that the appearance between 1998 and 2015 of new oncological drugs caused the average age of death of Spanish patients to increase by almost three years (2.77). Along with this, Professor Lichtenberg’s conclusions have pointed out that our country registered 42,132 fewer deaths from cancer than expected in 2016, the last year of the study, that is, a 29.2% reduction in the number of deaths.
Specifically, the research of the Columbia University professor, The Relationship Between Pharmaceutical Innovation and Cancer Mortality in Spain, From 1999 to 2016, analyzed what impact the use of oncological treatments had during that period for a total of 56 different types of cancer. Lichtenberg’s research showed that those types of cancer that had had the most pharmaceutical innovation in that period were the ones that had the greatest reductions in mortality.