How Much Money Is Spent On Cancer Treatment

When we give money to cancer enquiry charities similar Cancer Inquiry Britain we expect that coin to exist used efficiently to help detect and develop new treatments that will actually benefit patients, many of whom are friends and relatives. It is therefore shocking to discover that less than ii% of the money given to Cancer Enquiry Great britain is likely to be spent on developing new treatments that tin can be offered routinely on the NHS.

How can that be?

Well, here's what happens to the money we give.

How Much Goes on Inquiry?

Every year Cancer Research UK raises effectually £650m, by and large from public donations. However, according to its annual study, just 61% of concluding twelvemonth's full expenditure of £658m was spent on carrying out cancer enquiry. This increases to 66% if you include contributions towards the price of building a new research lab. The remainder was spent on other activities similar fundraising and overheads, including over £1m on salaries for the elevation 5 highest paid employees!

CRUK Expenditure 2015/16

Withal, this still represents 66% of the money we give, which is then used to develop new and improved treatments that could do good patients.

How Much Research Works?

much of this money is spent pursuing expressionless-ends

However , it turns out that much of this money is spent pursuing dead-ends, as the vast majority of promising new treatments discovered in laboratories neglect when tested in existent patients. In May 2016 a written report was published from the largest e'er report of clinical evolution success rates, which found that simply v.1% of promising new cancer treatments pass clinical trials. While it is natural that all enquiry involves a caste of failure, a 95% failure rate does seem rather high and is notably less than half of the success rate of promising new medicines for near other illnesses.

Clinical Trial Success Rates

And then, 66% of the money we requite for cancer research is spent on inquiry but but 5.1% of this 66% is likely to be spent on developing a drug that works!

Nevertheless, this withal means that three.4% of the money we give (66% x v.1%) is beingness spent on developing new and improved treatments that could potentially benefit patients.

How Affordable Are New Drugs from Cancer Research?

However , fifty-fifty if a new drug passes clinical trials to confirm that it is safe and effective to offering to patients, this doesn't mean that it can be offered to patients on the NHS. The NHS has a express budget and the Regime allows pharmaceutical companies to accuse any cost they similar for new drugs, and so many drugs are but as well expensive. Sometimes a discount can be agreed but drug companies would rather forgo revenues from the UK market than create downward pressure on prices internationally by agreeing big discounts.

Analysis of the new cancer drug approvals by Squeamish, the organisation that assesses the affordability of new drugs, shows that between 2011 and 2015 only 51% of new cancer drugs were deemed affordable enough for routine use by the NHS. And drug affordability has been failing over the terminal 15 years.

Cancer Drugs Unaffordable for NHS

And then, 66% of the money we requite for cancer research is spent on inquiry, just five.one% of this 66% is likely to be spent on developing a drug that works and only 51% of these drugs that work are affordable for routine use by the NHS!

Putting Information technology All Together

So, let's do the maths (66% x 5.1% 10 51%)…that means that just 1.7% of the money we pump into this enormous cancer research automobile is likely to exist spent on researching a new drug that will benefit NHS cancer patients.

Now peradventure yous experience that that represents proficient value for money merely I'g aroused that we meet so piffling benefit for the money we give. Manifestly whatever progress is better than none, but to me this feels like a shocking waste and indicates that we have a Research and Development (R&D) organization that is hugely inefficient.

this is a systemic failure not a failure of homo intentions

I have no doubt that every individual involved in this end to stop process is working difficult and they should all be commended for doing the best they can inside such poor constraints, merely this is a systemic failure not a failure of human intentions.

Encouraged by World Cancer Twenty-four hours on 4 February, people are existence asked to dig deeper than ever to raise increasing amounts of money for cancer research, in an act of unity, but we can't keep blindly pouring money into a bucket with a big pigsty in the bottom! We all want to see the day when we no longer alive in fear of cancer but the R&D system needs fixing or that twenty-four hours will exist far further off than it needs to be.

The Dying for a Cure entrada is calling for a major overhaul of the style we develop cancer drugs, to ensure that investment in R&D in channelled where information technology is likely to have most do good for patients not shareholders and that new medicines are affordable for widespread use.

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