Longer, Better Lives For More Americans (NAPSA)—Here’s good news about health: Thanks to continuing medical innovation and research into new therapies, many people are living longer, healthier, more productivelives. For example, according to a study in Health Affairs—a leading health care journal—cancer patients now live, on average, three years longer, with 83 percentof the gain attributable to new treatments. Other important health milestones include a nearly 50 percent decline in deaths from heart failure and heart attack since a decade ago, and the rate of deaths from AIDS falling by more than 70 percent since the advent of highly active anti-retroviral therapies. What’s more, blood pressure medicines prevented 86,000 premature deaths from cardiovascular disease and avoided 833,000 hospitalizations for heart attack and stroke. These and many other medical advances were driven by U.S.-based medical innovation, according to a recent study by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. In fact, the study showed that 75 percent of new drugs in recent years werefirst introducedin the U.S. “A strong, innovative and creative pharmaceutical research and biotechnology sector based in the United States is a real boon to American patients,” said Billy Tauzin, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. “American patients often get access to new and better medicines well ahead of patients around the world, and this homegrown innovation not only saveslives, it helps the American economy by employing millions of Americans and Pharmacies now have many new medications that can save lives— and a way to help consumers save money. pumping billions of dollars into our local and national economies.” The Congressional Budget Office specifically identified America’s pharmaceutical research and biotechnology sector as “one of the most research-intensive industries” in America. “It’s important to keep in mind,” said Tauzin, “that develop- ing new therapies can be risky, expensive and time consuming. Creating a new medicine, on average, takes between 10 and 15 years and can cost $1.3 billion. Butit’s an investment biopharmaceutical research companies make because nothing is as important as the search for new cures and treatments that help patients live longer, healthier lives.” For more information on how new medicines help improve health, visit www.PhRMA.org.For information on how new medicines are discovered and developed, visit www.innovation.org. If you are uninsured and need help paying for your medicines, contact the Partnership for Prescription Assistance at www.pparx.org or call (888) 4PPA-NOW.
