Study reveals 'significant disparities' between rich, poor countries in availability of cancer drugs

From 1990 to 2022, the number of new cancer drugs launched annually increased significantly in high-income countries, from 0.5 to over eight per year. However, in upper-middle-income countries, this increase was from 0.1 to 1.5, while lower-income countries saw minimal improvements, highlighting widening global disparities in cancer drug availability.

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New cancer drugs launched each year increased from 0.5 in the 1990s to over eight in 2022 among high-income countries , whereas they increased from 0.1 to 1.

5 a year among upper-middle-income countries, according to a global analysis revealing "significant" and "widening" disparities. New drug launches remained minimal in lower-middle-income and low-income countries, it found. Published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Global Health, the analysis highlighted significant disparities in both availability and timeliness of these medicines worldwide, according to researchers.



The inequities could explain the poor cancer outcomes across many countries, especially the low- and middle-income ones, where mortality-to-incidence ratios have been studied to be higher, despite overall cases being lower, the researchers, including those from The Pennsylvania State University, US, said. The measure 'mortality-to-incidence ratio' is used to compare inequities in cancer outcomes. It is calculated by dividing the deaths due to cancer by the case count in a given year.

The disparities are likely to worsen with low- and middle-income countries expected to bear the major brunt of the projected surge in global cancer cases in the years to come, the researchers added. Finance Corporate Fraud and Forensic Modelling By - Ankush Lamba, Managing Director- Ankura View Program Legal Mastering M&A Deal Making By - Ashwath Rau, Senior Partner- AZB & Partners View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) AI and Analytics based Business Strategy By - Tanusree De, Managing Director- Accenture Technology Lead, Trustworthy AI Center of Excellence: ATCI View Program Office Productivity Advanced Excel Course - Financial Calculations & Excel Made Easy By - Anirudh Saraf, Founder- Saraf A & Associates, Chartered Accountant View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Basics of Generative AI : Unveiling Tomorrow's Innovations By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, Developer and Lead Instructor View Program Strategy ESG and Business Sustainability Strategy By - Vipul Arora, Partner, ESG & Climate Solutions at Sattva Consulting Author I Speaker I Thought Leader View Program Finance A2Z Of Money By - elearnmarkets, Financial Education by StockEdge View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Java Programming with ChatGPT: Learn using Generative AI By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, Developer and Lead Instructor View Program Marketing Digital Marketing Masterclass by Pam Moore By - Pam Moore, Digital Transformation and Social Media Expert View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Generative AI for Dynamic Java Web Applications with ChatGPT By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, Developer and Lead Instructor View Program Office Productivity Mastering Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and 365 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, Developer and Lead Instructor View Program Legal Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 By - Gaurav Khera, Partner, Risk Advisory: Deloitte View Program Finance Financial Reporting and Analytics By - Dr. C.

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The data was taken from Pharmaprojects, a commercial database tracking global pharmaceutical research and development (R & D) activities in over 150 countries. Data from World Bank and Global Cancer Observatory was also used in the study. Of the 568 new cancer drugs, the US saw the most launches at 345, followed by Japan and Canada at 224 and 221, respectively, the researchers found.

Over 190 of the new drugs were launched in the UK and 169 in China during 1990-2022. Most of the new drugs were launched in the world's high-income regions such as North America, Western Europe, East Asia, and Australia, while the fewest were launched in low- and middle-income regions, including Africa and Southeast Asia, the researchers found. Further, while over half of the new drugs became available in the past decade, 35 per cent of the 568 were available in only one country, 22 per cent in two to five countries and 43 per cent in over five countries, the team found.

"The average number of new cancer drug launches per country each year increased from 0.5 per year in the early 1990s to 8.7 per year in 2022 in high-income countries, from 0.

1 to 1.5 per year in upper-middle-income countries, while remaining minimal among lower-middle-income and low-income countries," the authors wrote. (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel ).