Nearly a-quarter of European countries do not provide access to biologics for arthritis

Data from a study presented today at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism taking place in Berlin, Germany, demonstrates the vast inequalities in access to biologics for the treatments of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) across 46 European countries, with 22% (n=10) of countries having no biologic reimbursed at all.

In the 36 countries with reimbursed biologics, only 27 had more than five biologics reimbursed. The number of reimbursed drugs showed a moderate to very strong correlation with economic welfare and an inverse correlation with RA health status. Annual average per patient prices ranged from 9,431 euros ($11,659) in Turkey to 21,349 euros in Germany. However after adjusting for purchasing power parity, prices ranged from $14,446 to $61,552 which had a strong inverse correlation with economic welfare and a positive correlation with RA health. This demonstrates that countries with a lower socio-economic status have reduced access to biologics and a worse health status.

"Numerous clinical recommendations point to the role of biologic disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) when targeting treatment of RA to DAS28 below 2.6 However, biologics are expensive and thus European countries with lower healthcare funding have restricted access to these treatments," said Polina Putrik from Maastricht University in The Netherlands. The Netherlands and lead author of the study. "The findings of this study should alert health authorities to further strive towards optimal, EU-wide standards for access to care because some of the patients who could benefit are being denied essential treatments," she added.