Roles of Pharmacists for Realizing the Sustainability of the Aging Society

Abstract

Japan’s population is rapidly declining and the aged population will predominate within 20 years. Therefore, maintaining a strong financial, health and welfare is an urgent issue. Japan’s population will continue to decrease, and the number of elderly people will reach its peak around 2040. By 2040, the total population is expected to decrease to 110.92 million, with 1.4 productive age persons per elderly person. In addition, the national medical care expenditure, which is part of the social security benefits, is expected to increase approximately 1.7 times, from 39.2 trillion yen in fiscal year (FY) 2018 to 66.7 to 68.5 trillion yen in FY2040. In recent years, innovative drugs have been developed and approved for patient care, and the use of these expensive drugs has increased medical costs. In general, the prices of new pharmaceuticals without similar drugs are calculated by the cost accounting system on the basis of manufacturing costs, sales costs, research costs, distribution costs, and so on. In this review, we consider how pharmacists contribute to reducing medical costs to ensure the sustainability of the aging society, focusing on the cost structure of pharmaceutical companies in the drug pricing system in Japan.