TIME-trend and forecasting of the economic impact of inflammatory bowel disease in Catalonia: a population-based analysis.
The study shows rapidly rising IBD healthcare costs driven mainly by growing prevalence and biologic therapy spending, which can affect access, insurance coverage, and healthcare planning for people with Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.
Adult patients with IBD (especially those on biologic therapies), clinicians, health-system planners, payers, and researchers studying health economics or drug-access policy.
What To Know
Why it matters This population-based study reports that total IBD healthcare spending in Catalonia tripled between 2011 and 2024 and is projected to continue rising through 2036, with biologic therapies flagged as a major cost driver.
That matters for patients and policy makers because rising prevalence and drug costs affect access, budgeting, and care planning. What to know The authors used the Catalan Health Surveillance System to capture healthcare use and standardized costs for people with IBD (Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis) from 2011–2024, adjusted to 2024 euros.
Total IBD-related expenditures increased from €67.4M to €201.6M over that period; per-patient costs rose more modestly. Biologic treatments were the largest contributor to overall costs, though the paper attributes some per-patient pharmaceutical cost containment to policies promoting biosimilar use.
The study also reports differing trends by diagnosis: Crohn’s disease patients had higher per-capita costs, mean per-patient biologic costs decreased for Crohn’s but increased for ulcerative colitis. The authors used an autoregressive integrated moving average model to forecast costs to 2036, estimating total expenditure of about €319.0M by 2036.
Keep in mind This brief is based on the article abstract provided by the journal (structured content depth: abstract). The extraction is partial; details such as specific biologic agents, exact methods for cost attribution, and subgroup definitions are not available here. Forecasts are model-based projections, not observed future outcomes.
Findings are from a Catalonia public-health database and use standardized cost rules and CPI adjustment; cost forecasts are model-based and should be interpreted as projections. The extraction is partial and grounded in the article abstract.
