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5th
EMBL/EMBO Joint Conference 2004 |
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Session III |
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The anti-aging economy
Prospects and problems |
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Charles
McConnel, Professor of Health Care Sciences, University
of Texas, Dallas, USA
Although anti-aging
medicine is rarely defined, from an economic perspective
it appears to encompass at least three relatively
diverse areas of activity:
1. The production and marketing of a broad assortment
of life-enhancing products, services and devices,
many promoted and intended principally for an aging
population,
2. highly technical research programs in firms launched
by entrepreneurial scientists whose main objectives
include expansion of the life-span through manipulation
of the human genome and
3. on the boundary of the
antiaging concept, a sub-sector of the biotechnology
industry producing pharmacogenomic advances in genetic
testing and therapy targeted toward identifying
the genetic determinants of disease and interventions
that directly affect the quality and quantity of
life.
Each of these diverse areas currently or potentially
must compete for economic resources and markets
within a traditional but highly progressive medical
technology sector, is constrained by uncertainties
similar to those that impinge on the provision and
consumption of conventional health services and
is driven by a similar technological imperative.
Given the constraints and opportunity costs associated
with the production and consumption of anti-aging
products and services, health economics offer a
clear conceptual and theoretical framework within
which the potential behavior of economic agents,
be they consumers or producers, can be evaluated
and outcomes better anticipated. The health production
model, which incorporates disease as a random event
and views the consumer of health care as one who
is investing in additional productive days of life
as well as in the enjoyment of those additional
days, seems appropriate since it accommodates investments
in both the quantity and quality of life. This presentation
will examine the relevance of several economic concepts
to anti-aging medicine including the economic value
of additional years of life, time value of money
and recent application of cost-effectiveness analysis
to biogenetic testing and the adoption of biogenomic
products.
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