Economics of the use of biologics in the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease.

The introduction of the biologic therapies into the therapeutic regiment for IBD, coupled with the vast changes seen in health care delivery within the past decade, have turned previous economic assumptions and models on their head, and opened up a new opportunity to redefine what is truly the cost of a disease, and of its' interventions. Pundits and pencil-pushers are quick to point to the high drug cost as a threat to the economic stability of the health care system, without first doing a carefully planned, balanced analysis of the overall impact that such a therapy will make on the entire cost-structure of the system. This is also true outside of the United States, where those who must budget and pay for the therapies do not pay for the use of health care services, and simply enter the drug costs on an accountant's debit sheet. Such analyses are complicated, because they must calculate the impact that such therapies have on the direct costs of health care and the indirect costs for both the patient and their families or health care support system. Realizing what impact these therapies might have on altering the natural history of these previously relentless chronic debilitating conditions, and redefining how normal quality of life can actually get on these therapies, should be the focus of future studies as clinicians try to calculate truly whether these agents are cost savings for society overall.