A comparative study on the cost of new drugs in different therapeutic categories

Abstract number: p1502

Falagas  M., Fragoulis  K., Zouglakis  G., Karydis  I.

Objectives: 

Drug treatment is becoming more expensive due to the increased cost for the introduction of new drugs and there seems to be an uneven distribution of medication cost for different therapeutic categories. We hypothesized that the cost of new antimicrobial agents may differ from that of other therapeutic categories and this may play a role in the stagnation of development of new antibiotics.

Methods: 

We performed a pharmaco-economical comparative analysis of the drug cost of treatment for new agents introduced in the United States drug market in various therapeutic categories. We calculated the drug cost [in US dollars (USD)] of a 10-day treatment of all new drugs approved by the FDA during the period between January 1997 and July 2003, according to the 2004 Red Book Pharmacy's Fundamental Reference.

Results: 

New anti-neoplastic agents were found to be the most expensive drugs in comparison to all other therapeutic categories with a median 10-day drug-treatment cost of 848 USD compared to the median 10-day drug-treatment costs of all other categories ranging from 29 to 301 USD (Table). On the other hand, new antimicrobial drugs were found to be much less expensive with a median 10-day drug-treatment cost of 137 and 85 USD for all anti-microbial agents and for anti-microbial agents excluding anti-HIV medications, respectively.

Conclusion: 

The drug-treatment cost of new medications varies considerably by different therapeutic categories. This fact may influence industry decisions regarding the development of new drugs and may play a role in the shortage of new anti-microbial agents in the fight against the serious problem of anti-microbial resistance.