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Low-Cost Therapeutic Agents: Uses and Abuses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2009

John P. Bunker
John P. Bunker
Affiliation:
University College London School of Medicine
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Abstract

The past quarter century has seen a transformation of the pharmaceutical industry from blind empiricism to the design of drugs to act as agonists or antagonists at specific receptor sites. As truly effective technology, many have led to marked savings in cost. Savings have been achieved when therapeutic drugs, often highly specific, can be substituted for surgery and other invasive procedures and when therapeutic drugs can be used to prevent illness and the need for treatment. Further savings are achieved with the reduced prescription of ineffective drugs. It is estimated that therapeutic drugs and vaccines contribute about half of medicine's contribution to increased life expectancy and improved quality of life in this century at about 7% of national expenditures for medical care in the United States.

Type
Special Section: The Use And Abuse Of Low-Cost Technologies
Information
International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , Fall 1997 , pp. 521 - 525
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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