Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10453
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Disease delights in global warming
Bloomberg News 2007 Jun 14
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/business/story.html?id=067915c8-d26a-4605-92a7-8823487998f6
Full text:
Drug makers may profit from return of malaria, cholera and diphtheria
Global warming will contribute to a more than doubling of the world pharmaceutical market in 13 years as higher temperatures spur diseases, according to a study.
Rates of respiratory ills and infectious diseases will increase in some countries by 2020, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said in a report Wednesday. Sales of medicines will increase to $1.3 trillion US by then, from about $600 billion last year, if drug makers find innovative treatments, according to the report.
Climate change may cause malaria, cholera, diphtheria and dengue fever to resurface in countries where they were eradicated more than 60 years ago, the report said. Sales of asthma and bronchitis products will also be higher because warmer temperatures trigger pollen production. The drug market will also get a boost from a population growth and the spread of obesity.
“Global warming would have a major effect on the world’s health,” PricewaterhouseCoopers said. “All these changes are creating new openings for pharma. Some of them may be in different therapeutics areas. But demand for innovative medicines for old and new conditions alike is growing not shrinking.”
The report didn’t estimate how much of the projected increase in sales would be due to the global warming and how much would occur anyway.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting and consulting company based in New York, addressed global warming as part of a broader study for clients on the biopharmaceutical industries.
Scientists project the average temperature to increase by 0.4 degrees Celsius during the next two decades and the increase could be greater if greenhouse gas emissions increase, the report said, citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Climate change may already be playing a role in why new cases of malaria were reported in developing countries, such as Turkey and Georgia, where it was eradicated, the report said.
Salmonella and E. coli, which can cause food poisoning if ingested, may also become more prevalent as the bacteria can multiply faster with just a slight increase in temperature, according to the study. E. coli’s reproduction rate increases by six per cent for each degree above -10 degrees.
PricewaterhouseCoopers also said industry’s strategy of developing medicines that will produce more than $1 billion in annual revenue costs too much and produces too little.
U.S. spending on drug research and development, which accounts for three-quarters of worldwide investments, rose to a record $55.2 billion last year, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved about half as many new treatments as a decade earlier, according to the report. At the same time, sales and administrative expenses climbed 15 per cent in the 10 years to 2005.
By 2020, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey will account for as much as 20 per cent of worldwide drug sales. China would be the second- or third-largest market in the world, PricewaterhouseCoopers said.
Governments around the world face increasing health-care costs, in the form of both aging populations, which use more drugs, and a rise in chronic diseases such as diabetes.
Driven by increases in India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the number of diabetes patients will almost triple from 1995 to 2025.
