IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/10328.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Expanding Pharmaceutical Arsenal in the War on Cancer

Author

Listed:
  • Frank R. Lichtenberg

Abstract

Only about one third of the approximately 80 drugs currently used to treat cancer had been approved when the war on cancer was declared in 1971. We assess the contribution of pharmaceutical innovation to the increase in cancer survival rates in a differences in differences' framework, by estimating models of cancer mortality rates using longitudinal, annual, cancer-site-level data based on records of 2.1 million people diagnosed with cancer during the period 1975-1995. We control for fixed cancer site effects, fixed year effects, incidence, stage distribution of diagnosed patients, mean age at diagnosis, and surgery and radiation treatment rates. Cancers for which the stock of drugs increased more rapidly tended to have greater increases in survival rates. The increase in the stock of drugs accounted for about 50-60% of the increase in age-adjusted survival rates in the first 6 years after diagnosis. New cancer drugs increased the life expectancy of people diagnosed with cancer by about one year from 1975 to 1995. The estimated cost to achieve the additional year of life per person diagnosed with cancer below $3000 is well below recent estimates of the value of a statistical life-year. Since the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with cancer is about 40%, the estimates imply that new cancer drugs accounted for 10.7% of the overall increase in U.S. life expectancy at birth.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank R. Lichtenberg, 2004. "The Expanding Pharmaceutical Arsenal in the War on Cancer," NBER Working Papers 10328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10328
    Note: EH PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10328.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank Lichtenberg, 2005. "The Impact of New Drug Launches on Longevity: Evidence from Longitudinal, Disease-Level Data from 52 Countries, 1982–2001," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 47-73, January.
    2. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kyle, Margaret & Dubois, Pierre, 2016. "The Effects of Pharmaceutical Innovation on Cancer Mortality," CEPR Discussion Papers 11487, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Lakdawalla, Darius N. & Sun, Eric C. & Jena, Anupam B. & Reyes, Carolina M. & Goldman, Dana P. & Philipson, Tomas J., 2010. "An economic evaluation of the war on cancer," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 333-346, May.
    3. Dolan, Paul & Metcalfe, Robert, 2012. "The relationship between innovation and subjective wellbeing," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 1489-1498.
    4. Lionel Perrier & Magali Morelle & Nathalie Havet & Anthony Montella & Bertrand Favier & David Perol & Frédéric Gomez & Marie-Odile Carrere & Paul Rebattu, 2009. "The effect of health care expenditures on survival in locally advanced and metastatic Non Small Cell Lung Cancer," Working Papers 0903, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    5. Martin, Stephen & Rice, Nigel & Smith, Peter C., 2008. "Does health care spending improve health outcomes? Evidence from English programme budgeting data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 826-842, July.
    6. Fabio Pammolli & Massimo Riccaboni & Nicola Carmine Salerno, 2012. "I Farmaci Oncologici in Italia: innovazione e sostenibilità economica," Working Papers CERM 02-2012, Competitività, Regole, Mercati (CERM).
    7. Lichtenberg Frank R., 2008. "Pharmaceutical Innovation and U.S. Cancer Survival, 1992-2003: Evidence from Linked SEER-MEDSTAT Data," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-27, March.
    8. Dubois, Pierre & Kyle, Margaret, 2016. "The Effects of Pharmaceutical Innovation on Cancer Mortality Rates," TSE Working Papers 16-688, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    9. Rosarin Sruamsiri & Dennis Ross-Degnan & Christine Y Lu & Nathorn Chaiyakunapruk & Anita K Wagner, 2015. "Policies and Programs to Facilitate Access to Targeted Cancer Therapies in Thailand," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-17, March.
    10. Okunade, Albert A., 2004. "Concepts, measures, and models of technology and technical progress in medical care and health economics," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 363-368, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Charles I. Jones, 2016. "Life and Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(2), pages 539-578.
    2. Chu, Angus C. & Cozzi, Guido & Furukawa, Yuichi, 2016. "Unions, innovation and cross-country wage inequality," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 104-118.
    3. Heijs, Joost, 2003. "Freerider behaviour and the public finance of R&D activities in enterprises: the case of the Spanish low interest credits for R&D," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 445-461, March.
    4. Jeffrey Frankel, 2014. "Mauritius: African Success Story," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume IV: Sustainable Growth, pages 295-342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Grimaud, Andre & Rouge, Luc, 2003. "Non-renewable resources and growth with vertical innovations: optimum, equilibrium and economic policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(2, Supple), pages 433-453, March.
    6. van de Klundert, T.C.M.J. & Smulders, J.A., 1991. "Reconstructing growth theory : A survey," Other publications TiSEM 19355c51-17eb-4d5d-aa66-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    7. Martha Denisse Pierola & Ana Margarida Fernandes & Thomas Farole, 2018. "The role of imports for exporter performance in Peru," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 550-572, February.
    8. Luis Garicano & Thomas N. Hubbard, 2016. "The Returns to Knowledge Hierarchies," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 653-684.
    9. Marktanner Marcus & Makdisi Samir, 2008. "Development against All Odds? The Case of Lebanon," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 4(3), pages 101-133, September.
    10. Claude DIEBOLT & Jamel TRABELSI, 2009. "Human Capital and French Macroeconomic Growth in the Long Run," Economies et Sociétés (Serie 'Histoire Economique Quantitative'), Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), issue 40, pages 901-917, May.
    11. Jati Sengupta, 2002. "Economics of efficiency measurement by the DEA approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(9), pages 1133-1139.
    12. Foellmi, Reto & Wuergler, Tobias & Zweimüller, Josef, 2014. "The macroeconomics of Model T," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 617-647.
    13. Richard Harris & John Moffat, 2011. "R&D, Innovation and Exporting," SERC Discussion Papers 0073, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    14. Askarov, Zohid & Doucouliagos, Hristos, 2015. "Spatial aid spillovers during transition," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 79-95.
    15. Smulders, Sjak & Gradus, Raymond, 1996. "Pollution abatement and long-term growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 505-532, November.
    16. Marattin, Luigi & Marzo, Massimiliano & Zagaglia, Paolo, 2013. "Distortionary tax instruments and implementable monetary policy," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 219-243.
    17. Grimaud, Andre & Rouge, Luc, 2005. "Polluting non-renewable resources, innovation and growth: welfare and environmental policy," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 109-129, June.
    18. B. Bhaskara Rao & Arusha Cooray, 2012. "How useful is growth literature for policies in the developing countries?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(6), pages 671-681, February.
    19. Alan B. Krueger, 2002. "Inequality, Too Much of a Good Thing," Working Papers 845, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    20. George Halkos & Iacovos Psarianos, 2016. "Exploring the effect of including the environment in the neoclassical growth model," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 18(3), pages 339-358, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10328. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.