Availability and affordability of anticancer medicines in Iran based on WHO/HAI standard survey methods.

PURPOSE

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world after cardiovascular disease. The present study aimed to investigate the affordability and physical access to chemotherapy drugs among patients with one of the three common cancers of the breast, stomach, and colon in the city of Mashhad, Iran, in 2021.

METHODS

This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. Twenty drug stores including two public and 18 privates in Mashhad were evaluated. Data was collected by consistent stay in the drug stores or pharmacies. For each oncology medicine, selling price, lowest general price, and availability were investigated. Three approaches have been experimented to calculate the affordability of anticancer medicines in this study.

RESULTS

Out of 28 studied medicines from public and private drug stores, 15 (53.5%) received very low, 8 (28.5%) relatively high, and 2 (7%) high access scores. The generic docetaxel brand's ultra-drug and trastuzumab (AryoTrust) were the most available drugs, but the doxorubicin (Ebewe), oxaliplatin (Mylan), and trastuzumab (Herceptin) were not available to the individuals with cancer. Also, the first approach (based on income decile) indicated that insured patients from all income deciles were able to pay the costs of the lowest price drugs of the DCF drug regimen, and if the patients were insured and belonged to the ninth income decile, they had the financial ability to buy drugs at the lowest price of the FLO drug regimen.

CONCLUSION

Unaffordability of cancer medicines can lead to treatment abandonment and increase inequality in access to healthcare services. Therefore, this requires immediate attention of policy makers to be planned in order to ensure to reducing the costs of medicines for patients and increasing patient access to anticancer medicines.