The Business of Diabetes
How much does the treatment of one disease cost?
I’m not talking in terms of human toll–the amount of people afflicted, those struggling to manage their lives in the wake of a momentous diagnosis. Let’s just talk numbers. How much, on average, do you think taking care of diabetes costs each year? All those vials of insulin and medical treatments to keep your sugars in check? How much is it all worth?
The answer is 34 billion.
That number is already far too large, but even worse is that it’s not the full figure. We gleaned this from IMS Health Inc ( a well-respected analyst of the health industry), and this number does not include consumables, i.e. test strips, pump supplies, syringes, anything that must used and discarded on a regular basis. With those, we see an added 10-15 billion to the overall cost. And none of this takes into account the money put into combating the problems of this disease–neuropathy, amputations, heart problems, loss of vision, etc.
So when you really look at it, the cost of diabetes is well over 50 billion dollars a year. I can’t even conceive what that amount of money looks like, let alone the fact that’s it’s all coming from a disease I have.
Diabetes is an industry rivaling the biggest in entertainment, and this is precisely why we believe no cure will ever come out of the pharmaceutical industry. There is simply too much money to be made, and any attempts to cure the disease would surely involve some sort of daily pill/injection/treatment in order to collect a profit. Non-profits are the only true entities that stand a chance at funding a cure, and while we are critical of their spending practices, we recognize their importance to the community and the future of disease.
You can read more about our findings in our report “Partnering with Commercial Enterprise“, which discusses the inherent problems with finding a cure in the current medical system, and how charities could direct us to one if we only changed where they place donations. Go ahead and read it, and if you have any comments or questions, feel free to get in touch either on the blog, facebook, or email.
–Nick
Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
You don’t mention what the cost is per individual.
I’d like to see more studies like this one that compares the cost of treatments. I think this is very compelling.
I don’t have access to the link, but here is the abstract.
A health economic analysis of clinical islet transplantation
Keywords:
cost;cost-effectiveness analysis;economic model;health economics;islet cell transplantation
Beckwith J, Nyman JA, Flanagan B, Schrover R, Schuurman H-J. A health economic analysis of clinical islet transplantation. Clin Transplant 2011 DOI: 10.1111/j.1399-0012.2011.01411.x. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
Abstract: Islet cell transplantation is in clinical development for type 1 diabetes. There are no data on the cost in relationship to its benefits. We performed a cost-effectiveness analysis and made a comparison with standard insulin therapy, using Markov modeling and Monte Carlo simulations. The patient population was adults aged 20 yr suffering from hypoglycemia unawareness. Data were estimates from literature and clinical trials: costs were based on the situation in the United States. For insulin therapy, cumulative cost per patient during a 20-yr follow-up was $663 000, and cumulative effectiveness was 9.3 quality-adjusted life years (QALY), the average cost-effectiveness ratio being $71 000 per QALY. Islet transplantation had a cumulative cost of $519 000, a cumulative effectiveness of 10.9 QALY, and an average cost-effectiveness ratio of $47 800. During the first 10 yr, costs for transplantation were higher, but cumulative effectiveness was higher from the start onwards. In sensitivity analyses, the need for one instead of two transplants during the first year did not affect the conclusions, and islet transplantation remained cost-saving up to an initial cost of the procedure of $240 000. This exploratory evaluation shows that islet cell transplantation is more effective than standard insulin treatment, and becomes cost-saving at about 9–10 yr after transplantation.