An Estimated 1.5 Million Deaths Could Be Avoided A Year If Anti-cancer Drugs Were Approved Faster

According to a recent study, if the world approved anti-cancer drugs more quickly, 1.5 million deaths could be prevented every year.

This figure is based on the time it took to obtain approvals in several countries for newly launched drugs to treat lung or prostate cancer, after they received the green light in the United States, reports a local Arabic daily.

Pembrolizumab, an effective treatment for most types of lung cancer, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States in 2016 and according to an analysis published yesterday in the “Harvard Business Review” and not subject to evaluation by other scientists, it was possible to save more than 600,000 years of patients’ lives if Brazil, Canada, China, India and the European Union agreed to the drug at the same time.

The researchers, including the American oncologist Bobby Daley, also focused on the treatment “enzalutamide” used against prostate cancer, the second most diagnosed cancer in men in the world.

After it was approved by the FDA in 2012, it was not approved for use in China until seven years later, in part due to a duty to conduct separate trials.

An investigation by members of the Bloomberg New Economy International Cancer Coalition revealed that 284,000 years of patients’ life could have been saved if other major countries had approved the drug simultaneously with the US Drug Agency.

By dropping these observations on the two treatments, the researchers considered that if the major countries of the world simultaneously allowed the use of about seven anti-cancer drugs approved by the FDA annually, this would have reduced the number of cancer deaths by an average of 10 percent and 20 percent.

According to the website "Sky News Arabia," this represents one and a half million of the approximately ten million people who die annually due to cancer.

 

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