One of the obstacles to incorporating new generations of therapies is the economic cost. That is why, in many cases, in addition to clinical trials that verify their 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 journal Value in Health, has shown 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 often extremely costly, especially in advanced stages that correspond to the indications of several innovative drugs." And also that these "require approximately 12 times more research and development than other medical expenses."

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"Most of the progress made in longevity is due to drugs"

  • Written by: NAIARA BROCAL Madrid

"Most of the progress made in longevity is due to drugs"

With these two points of view to be taken into account, the study has shown that the appearance of new oncological drugs between 1998 and 2015 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 reduction of 29.2% in the number of deaths.

Specifically, the research by the Columbia University professor, The Relationship Between Pharmaceutical Innovation and Cancer Mortality in Spain, From 1999 to 2016, analysed the impact of the use of cancer treatments during that period for a total of 56 different types of cancer. Lichtenberg's research showed that those cancers that had had the most pharmaceutical innovation in that period had the greatest reductions in their mortality.

The Columbia professor also includes IQVIA data. These indicate that in 2016 €1.090 billion was spent on new drugs used to treat cancer that were authorised between 2000 and 2016. These calculations imply that, under the assumption that the association between pharmaceutical innovation and mortality reduction is causal, the expenditure on drugs per life year before the age of 75 gained in 2016 with new cancer drugs that were authorized between 2000 and 2016 may have been €3,269.

In the research, Lichtenberg took into account data from a study by Laura Vallejo-Torres, from the Spanish Network of Health Technology and Evaluation, which empirically estimated that the cost per quality-adjusted life year was between 21,000 and 24,000 euros; a figure that is increasingly considered to be at the benchmark threshold in Spain. However, as Lichtenberg's article states, Vallejo-Torres and the other authors of the article "argued that controversy remains about the use of a cost-effectiveness threshold, about what the threshold should represent, and about the appropriate methodology to arrive at a threshold value, and that some interventions with positive net social benefits, depending on the preferences of individuals, it may not be an appropriate use of resources under fixed budgetary constraints."

Thus, the pharmacoeconomic paper considers the figure of 3,269 euros as an estimate of the expenditure on medicines per year of life gained, not the total medical cost per year of life gained; because other health care costs are not taken into account. Thus, the total medical expenditure per year of life gained could be considerably higher. "However, several studies have shown that the introduction of new drugs is associated with reductions in hospital, outpatient and home doctor visit events," Lichtenberg said.

Among the drugs included in the analysis are imatinib, docetaxel, interferon alfa 2A and 2B, topotecan or paclitaxel, used in lung tumors, and hematological tumors, among others.

  • cancer
  • Advanced Therapies