Drugs Spending "Cuts Health Costs Overall"

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has published newevidence which it says shows that expenditure on medicines reduces the costs of National Health Service treatment overall.

Moreover, it says, drug spending speeds up health care delivery and reduces or eliminates the burden in other sectors of state spending, particularly social services. "The use of medicines, new and old, provides doctors and the NHS with their most powerful weapon in the search to reduce the overall costs of ill health to both the individual patient and society," says ABPI director-general Trevor Jones.

The report, entitled The Seven Values of Medicines, examines how drugs are cutting the costs of treating bowel and breast cancer, epilepsy and asthma; further disease area studies are to follow. It also includes a new pharmacoeconomic study from Medtap in the areas of cardiovascular/coronary artery disease, HIV/AIDS, peptic ulcer disease and depression which, it says, confirms that drugs can make savings in total health care spending as a result of preventing patients from requiring much more costly procedures or long-term care, and deliver significant health benefits to patients at relatively little cost.