Cancer drug spending jumped to $100 billion globally last year, a 10.3 percent increase from 2013 and $25 billion more than it was five years ago, according to a new report.
Cancer drug spending made up 10.8 percent of global spending on all medicines in 2014, an increase from 10.1 percent in 2010,
according to the new study by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.
Americans, meanwhile, spend 11.3 percent of all medical spending on cancer drugs, the
new study stated, according to The Wall Street Journal.
"The pace of change in cancer care is accelerating," the IMS Institute study stated in its summary. "A cluster of innovative treatments, often combined with other new or existing medicines, and frequently associated with biomarkers, are emerging from the research and development pipeline."
"The landscape is shifting rapidly, bringing new complexity to oncologists, payers and governments who all look to provide appropriate care to patients while ensuring the sustainability of healthcare systems. Earlier diagnosis, longer treatment duration, and increased effectiveness of drug therapies are contributing to rising levels of spending on medicines for cancer care," the summary continued.
NBC News wrote that 45 new cancer drugs were approved between 2010 and 2014, including 10 last year. Opdivo from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Keytruda from Merck, which spurs the immune system to fight cancer, cost a reported $12,500 a month each.
"We're in for a period of intense competition among alternative treatments, which is a different dynamic than we've seen in the past where the progress has been a little slower and individual drugs had a little more time," Murray Aitken, executive director of
IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, told Reuters.
Aitken said that while cancer spending has increased, cancer patients are getting improved results because of the new medicines coming online. The institute stated that two-thirds of Americans diagnosed with cancer now live at least five years, as compared to the slightly more than 50 percent in 1990.
"Innovative therapeutic classes, combination therapies, and the use of biomarkers will change the landscape over the next several years, holding out the promise of substantial improvements in survival with lower toxicity for
cancer patients," Aitken said in an IMS statement.