Medicines are Part of the Solution

Richard Myer, over at Pharma Marketer details some useful facts about the cost of drug development. One of the things that astonished me was the prediction that by 2020 an estimated 52 percent of the adult population will have diabetes or prediabetes.

We've talked already about the coming health care catastrophe of Alzheimer's disease. The looming diabetes crisis should sober us all to how critical research and development is as part of the solution to the problem.

Anyway, I was particularly struck by something else Myer says in the post:

"Spending on prescription medicines in the US is, and has always been, considerably less than spending on hospital care or physician services. Chronic disease accounts for $3 out of every $4 spent on healthcare. It's the cost of disease - not the cost of medicines - that threatens the US health care system."

As we think about solutions to the many health challenges we face in this country, we should keep in mind the role that innovative medicines already play in helping to control health care costs. Especially their role in helping to prevent and manage chronic disease - such as heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes - before patients require the most expensive parts of our health care system - hospitalizations, surgeries and long-term care.