Case studies highlight peril to treatment advances across several disease states
 
August 14, 2024 (WASHINGTON, DC) The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD) today announced the release of a new data set that highlights critical risks posed to the development and delivery of new treatments and cures for patients living with lung and rare cancers, autoimmune and mental health conditions, stroke, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The analysis, conducted by Lumanity, explores the treatment advances that likely would have been lost had the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) been in place 10 years ago. By using real life examples of innovation losses, the extent of the unintended consequences of the IRA to some of our country’s most vulnerable patients is evident.
 
“Advances in medicine help us manage our health, but poor policy choices lessen our ability to address unmet medical needs of people living with chronic disease. These case studies demonstrate in real terms the advances that stand to be lost without reforms to the IRA that disincentivize specific types of innovation,” stated PFCD Chair Ken Thorpe. “PFCD and our partners have long worked to support access and affordability for prescription medicines and to address rising costs by improving transparency, fixing flawed systems, and removing administrative obstacles.”
 
The overarching takeaways from these case studies in innovation lost are the significance of post-approval research and how the IRA’s timeline for Medicare pricing disincentivizes research into areas of the greatest unmet medical needs for patients. The repercussions are especially acute for people living with autoimmune and rare diseases, mental illnesses, cardiovascular conditions and many cancers.
 
Key findings include:

• One in five people treated for depression would have stopped taking their medicines because of side effects but for the development of second-generation anti-depressants.
• Of 80,000 people receiving a drug with indications for multiple rare cancers: 51,300 were treated for the cancer type with the largest indication and the remaining 28,000 had some other cancer. The IRA puts these individuals and treatments resulting from post-approval research at risk.
• Post-FDA approval research on diabetes proved a medication class’s positive effects that reduced the damage of diabetes on the heart and kidneys. Without that research, in a ten-year period the healthcare system would have incurred an addition of $7 billion for hemodialysis, and $1.3 billion for post-stroke treatment and rehabilitation. In addition, 14,000 deaths would be prevented.
• Without new medicines for early lung cancers, only half as many people with non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) would be cancer free and alive five years after treatment.

 
The full collection of fact sheets can be found at: www.fightchronicdisease.org/resources/new-data-illustrate-human-impacts-fewer-treatments-IRA.
 
For more information on the unintended consequences of the IRA and the resulting challenges posed to chronic disease patients, please visit: www.fightchronicdisease.org/events/AtWhatCost.
 
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