Chapter 16: Cancer Therapies Face Increasing Reimbursement Pressures in Europe and Japan

Cancer therapies face increasing reimbursement pressures in Europe and Japan According to a recent report published by the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, approximately 3 million residents of the 25 member states of the European Union (EU) were diagnosed with cancer in 2004. In that same year, approximately 1.7 million EU residents died from this disease. Since 1981, cancer has been the leading cause of death in Japan, and cancer mortality in that country has grown rapidly – from 217,413 recorded deaths in 1990 to 320,358 in 2004. These figures graphically demonstrate the dreadful social cost of cancer. The economic burden imposed by this disease – in terms of both the direct costs of treatment and the indirect costs of disability, lost income and taxation, and premature death – is also terrible. Innovative cancer therapies can play an important role in mitigating the impact of cancer, but these drugs are ...

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