Skyrocketing healthcare costs

The cost of healthcare is almost impossible to fathom, but when you put it into perspective, it somehow brings it down to earth.
That is what G. Steven Burrill, chief executive of venture capital firm Burrill and Co. did during his keynote address today at Interphex in New York.
“The cost of healthcare today is $2 trillion and it will double by 2015,” Burrill said. He said that increase in costs will not necessarily come from out of control drug costs, but rather the aging of the Baby Boomers and the increased quality of healthcare. Around 10% of those costs will come from drugs, he said. As people live longer and quality of healthcare increase for those getting older, it makes sense that costs would go up, he said.
He said one of the problems facing the pharma and biotech industries is research. Companies are not necessarily investing money into their own research, but rather, they are purchasing smaller companies with their own pipeline.
“In the future, we will continue to see partnering and consolidation,” Burrill said.
He said what the United States spends in five months on the war in Iraq is what the country spends in a year on research and development for new drug development.
Some of the hot areas in the biotech/pharma area, Burrill said, are stem cells, biofuels and personalized medicine.
He also said globalization is a trend that will not go away. In fact, he said, it was critical to advance the industry.
“We have to look at a global industry because disease has no border,” he said.