Appendix r — 📈 Impact of Innovative Medicines on Life Expectancy

A three-way fixed-effects analysis of 66 diseases in 27 countries, suggests that if no new drugs had been launched after 1981, the number of years of life lost would have been 2.16 times higher it actually was. It estimates that pharmaceutical expenditure per life-year saved was $2837.

Graph showing the shift in relative mortality among major diseases over 60 years.

More people survive as more treatments are developed. There’s a strong correlation between the development of new cancer treatments and cancer survival over 30 years.

Graph showing the correlation of developing new cancer treatments and cancer survival over 30 years.