OBJECTIVES

Information on the cost burden of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), in Russia is scarce, though it is recognized as a severe and incapacitating condition. Our aim was to assess the medical costs of IBD in adults from a public payer perspective in Russia.

METHODS

We modelled the costs of medical care covered by public health insurance and pharmaceutical benefits paid by the regional and federal budgets attributed to IBD in Russia. Data on the number of patients and their characteristics, as well as spending on pharmaceutical benefits was extracted from the results of the survey of Russian health regional authorities, held in 2016 (77 out of 85 responded). Data on medical care were derived from the public health insurance claims from 67 regions, coded as K50 and K51. All costs were converted into EURO using the average-weighted exchange rate for 2018 (1 EURO = 73.9546 RUR).

RESULTS

We estimated that in 2017 there were 9,277 adult patients with CD and 22,144 patients with UC living in Russia. The annual medical costs for CD were 13.1 mln EURO and 21.1 mln EURO for UC. The largest medical cost for CD was attributed to biologic therapy (47%), for UC biologic therapy was the second largest cost (29%) after hospital admissions not associated with surgery or biologic therapy (64%). However, it was estimated that pharmaceutical benefits and public health insurance covered the cost of biologic therapy only for 66% of CD patients and 73% of UC patients.

CONCLUSIONS

Biologic therapy is one of the main cost drivers for IBD in Russia, but due to existing rules of pharmaceutical benefits provision some patients have to pay for it themselves. Hence, patients bear a substantial proportion of costs associated with IBD.