Comparator Report on Cancer in the Nordic Countries – Disease Burden, Costs and Access to Medicines

In a new report, the IHE compares the development in the cancer field in the Nordic countries. The report draws on data from public sources and sales statistics to describe how disease burden, costs and access to medicines have developed over time. The report shows that the number of people diagnosed with cancer continue to increase in the Nordic countries due to a growing and aging population. Despite this, mortality rates have stabilized which can be explained by improved survival over time. The Nordic countries now have fairly similar survival rates at the aggregate level. The health care cost of cancer has increase over time, while the cost due to early mortality has decreased. The uptake and use of new medicines vary between the Nordic countries. Among the forms of cancer that was studied in this report it can’t be said that a single country consistently outperforms or underperforms the other even though spending in general appears to be lower in Finland and there has been a considerable shift in Norway in recent years. It can also be observed that in some cases there are as large variations within countries as between them. This work was made possible by grants from LIF, the trade association for the research-based pharmaceutical industry in Sweden, and from the Bengt Jönsson Foundations for Health Economic Research.