A category of medications commonly used to treat Multiple Sclerosis (MS), know as disease modifying drugs, cost Americans 67% more than fellow world leaders such as Britain, Canada, and Germany. A new study released this week shows that the health gains associated with the medications come at a very high cost when compared to therapies that address the symptoms of MS and treatments for other chronic diseases.
Data was reviewed from 844 individuals with early stage MS and projected health care costs, including the cost of the drugs, and lost productivity over a 10 year period. The study found that while MS patients using disease modifying drugs experience modest health gains, the cost associated with using these drugs is more than 8 times higher than what is considered reasonable from a health economics cost effectiveness perspective.
Katia Noyes, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center says:
“If we could bring the cost of these drugs in line with what pharmaceutical companies are paid in other industrialized countries, we could significantly improve the cost-benefit ratio. While it is clear that disease-modifying drugs are beneficial to some MS patients, those gains come at a tremendous economic cost. These results point to the need to continually evaluate the cost-effectiveness of new treatments in the interest of controlling health care costs.”
In the 1990’s several new drugs were introduced that modified the course of the disease, as opposed to traditional therapies that primarily treat the symptoms of MS. These drugs, which include interferons and glatiramer acetate, have been shown in large clinical studies to slow the progression of the disease and reduce relapses. However, these drugs are associated with side effects and are very expensive, costing as much as $30,000 per year.
Individuals taking disease modifying drugs experienced a modest improvement in health according to the study. Data from an ongoing survey of MS patients funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Using this and several other sets of data, it projected the health care costs (medications, hospital admissions, out-patient visits, diagnostic testing, and home and long term care) over a 10 year period associated with individuals taking disease-modifying drugs and those who instead underwent other basic treatments to control their symptoms. Health care costs were generated using Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates.
Noyes then employed a method called quality-adjusted life years (QALY) to evaluate the health effects of the drugs. QALY is a standard tool used to evaluate disease burden by estimating the improved quality of life gained over time by taking a particular medication or course of therapy. A general rule of thumb among health policy experts is that for an intervention to be judged “cost-effective” it should cost $100,000 or less to produce an extra QALY. According to the study, disease-modifying drugs for MS cost more than $800,000 per QALY.
MS is a disease of the central nervous system and is the most common cause of neurological disability in young adults. The disease causes muscle weakness, numbness or tingling in arms and legs, difficulty with coordination, balance and walking, blurred vision, and slurred speech. Early in the course of the disease the symptoms manifest themselves in cycles of acute symptoms followed by periods of remission and recovery. Over time these symptoms tend to become more permanent and debilitating.
Source: The Neurology Journal
Written by Sy Kraft