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Can innovation drive down healthcare costs?

It is predicted that by 2025 the OECD will have over 240 million people aged over 65 years, compared to 98 million older people in 1980. Tax increases required to protect current health benefit levels in 2030 will equate to 140% in Italy and 90% in Germany. Everybody understands that this is unsustainable. But what are the options? Innovation is the word of the day! But, innovation costs, a lot. Medical inflation has been running well ahead of all other sectors, even at a time of economic hardship. Reconciling the need to have an innovative healthcare sector while health ministers are battling to control spending will be a major challenge. Developing ever more sophisticated – and expensive – imaging technology and surgical implants is leading governments to question whether improved versions of existing technology add enough value to warrant their price tag.

It has been suggested that rather than targeting small numbers of patients in developed countries with state-of-the-art devices, one should make more affordable versions of existing technology and sell them to large emerging markets.

The potential of telemedicine to reduce healthcare costs by treating and monitoring patients in their own homes is also something cash-strapped governments have become increasingly interested in. Ambient assisted living can help preserve patient autonomy and reduce demand for expensive specialist hospital care. It also has a key role in preventative medicine, which is seen as another tool for keeping people healthier for longer. The use of generic medicines is commonly put forward as a means of delivering low-cost, effective treatments. However, the innovation-based pharma sector argues that reducing the market for new, patented medicines will affect the industry’s long-term viability. Others look to innovative work practices and smarter service delivery models as a means of securing progress and economic savings. Whichever solution debaters recommend for solving the riddle of how to deliver high-quality healthcare to the majority of the citizens without emptying the coffers, they seem to agree on one account: the necessity of pooling resources.

One country that is about to restructure its biosciences infrastructure in order to avoid overlapping and redundant investments is Finland. The country will develop nine nation-wide technology platform services, with the ambition of getting the maximum amount of services for the lowest level of costs. This type of integration of efforts may serve as an example for other countries as well.

ANDERS LINDGREN
Editor-in-Chief
European Life Science Journal

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