Key Statistics

There are a number of policy, patient, and investment barriers to ensure patients continue to have access to a pipeline of new therapeutics to improve the ability to manage and treat their chronic and other diseases:

New Treatment

The cost of taking a new therapy to market from discovery to bedside remains very high with estimates of average research and development expenditures per new drug ranging from less than $1 billion to more than $2 billion

These estimates all include capital costs as well as expenditures on drugs that did not make it to market (which shows that developing new drugs is expensive as well as suffer from high rates of failure).

Support Programs

Need for peer-to-peer support programs to navigate this complex system (one of the key focus areas for Patient Advocates United)

Treatment Costs

Additional key barriers include affordability (such as high deductibles and out of pocket expenses) which can lead to poor access to medicines (which has negative impacts on management of a patient’s disease)

These challenges are evidenced in a recent survey that found 13% of Americans are forgoing needed care, have trouble paying medical bills, have out of pocket costs that are more than they can afford, have no savings to cover medical expenses and worry about accessing and paying for care.