While the first meeting between drug manufacturers and the Minister for Economic Development Claudio Scajola is taking place in these hours in relation to the announcement of a thousand redundancies already declared by companies, which was discussed in the last issue of Pharmamarketing, a new study gives new impetus to the role played by pharmaceutical companies. In fact, if there were no more drugs, concludes the study conducted by the CER (European Research Center) in collaboration with Farmindustria, the world would be sicker but also with the accounts more in the balance. "The drug industry - comments Sergio Dompè, president of Farmindustria - does not ask for either discounts or justifications for any incorrect behavior, which must always be condemned and eliminated. For some time, however, we have been asking for more transparency, fewer laws and more controls. Pharmaceutical spending is not only a cost, but it is also a saving for the health system and for the economy as a whole. it is necessary to consider the expenditure on drugs in relation to the real benefits it produces". The numbers of the study, coordinated by Vincenzo Atella, of the Faculty of Economics of Tor Vergata in Rome, are unequivocal.
By examining the data on cardiovascular, respiratory and nervous system diseases, which together represent 53% of total mortality and disability due to chronic diseases, it was found that the availability and appropriate use of drugs for these diseases have allowed a net cost saving for the national health system of approximately 12 billion euros a year. In particular, the 52% of savings, equal to 6.4 billion euros, represented by lower healthcare costs and the 48%, 6 billion, by lower indirect costs. Furthermore, without the medicines available today, public health expenditure would rise progressively up to an increase of 16% in 2040, equal to approximately 60 billion euros, 1.3% of GDP, which could v be used differently. A fact aggravated by the social situation which sees the population ageing, according to an estimate by the OECD in 2020, the 20% of the population in Europe will be over sixty, against the 15% of 2005. The study by the Roman University therefore attests to the savings that drugs can bring about on overall health care costs, against the commonplace that wants drugs as the main culprits of health care waste. In the light of these data, conclude the authors of the research, "health expenditure, and pharmaceutical expenditure in particular, should be considered as a highly productive investment. This would be one of the few viable solutions today to hope for financially sustainable health systems, which can avoid, in the near future, unwanted operations of rationing access to health care for the less well-off population". From Marco Malagutti
Source: "Pharmamarketing"
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