VIDEO: Costly treatments, lack of insurance hinder care for IBD patients in South Asia
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In this Healio video exclusive, Neilanjan Nandi, MD, FACP, discusses the financial burden for patients with inflammatory bowel disease in South Asia, fueled by costly diagnostics and treatments and lack of health insurance.
“Although medical insurance does exist in South Asia, the comprehensive profile that we’re used to in the West is not so comprehensive there,” Nandi, associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and member of the South Asian IBD Alliance, said. “Therefore, there’s a lot of financial burden on the patients.”
Capitalizing on biosimilar medications will be “critical to providing advanced therapies to our South Asian patients,” he noted, as well as considering generic markets for small-molecule therapies and providing financial support programs for patients.
“How do we get this done in South Asia?” Nandi asked. “It will be absolutely necessary to have multistakeholder advocacy conferences: This means inviting the government, IBD expertise, insurance holders and patients to the same roundtable to understand how we can actually increase medication access and financial affordability.”
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Balasubramaniam M, et al. Gastroenterol. 2022;doi:10.1053/j.gastro.2022.08.051.
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