The Life-Years-Saved Clock Is All About The Value Of Life

In 1990, there were about 6 million cancer survivors in the United States. Today there are about 14 million. Also, in 1990, about 57 percent of all people with cancer could expect to live 5 years or more. Today nearly 70 percent are living 5 years or longer. Both cancer survivorship and life expectancy are increasing. And a lot of that increase is the result of medical innovations in treating cancer. If you multiply the growth in life longevity by the millions of people with cancer, we're saving a lot of lives! Can you imagine how many more lives we can save if we invest in medical innovation?

Personal Well-being Impacts
Economic Well-being

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the traditional measure of economic well-being. But it doesn’t count the value of more people with cancer living longer lives. Economists have converted calculations of extended life into additional income as a nation. If you multiply that value by that all of the people living longer with cancer, we've just added $4.7 trillion to our GDP. And that income will increase if we live healthier, longer lives. Incredible, right?

Take a good look at the Life-Years-Saved Clock. Adjust the sliders, play with the numbers, and see how we can change and save lives. Together. Be sure to share the clock with others.

Life-Years-Saved Clock FAQ

1. What is the Value of Innovation Clock?

The clock starts off by showing the how much progress we have made in adding life-years to the growing number of cancer survivors between 1990 and 2010. We also show the economic value of living a longer life. Then you can use sliders to figure out what would happen to those life-years and the total economic benefit if we change how much time and money we spend on new cancer research.

2. How did you arrive at the number of life-years saved or gained?

The estimate is obtained by multiplying the increase in the number of cancer survivors by the increase in average life expectancy and then multiplying that by the number of years.

3. What is the economic value of life-years saved, and how did you arrive at that number?

We multiplied the additional life-years by a conservative estimate ($93,000) of what people think (in dollar amounts) they would gain by living another year. We use the most recent estimates of the worth of another life-year ($300,000) to determine the economic benefits in the future. We use $300,000 because the value of life has increased as we treat cancer earlier and people live longer and because more of the value of new medicines now goes to consumers. If you want to take a deeper dive into the model and see how others have used it, go here:

4. How does the time it takes to develop a new medicine affect the number of life-years saved and the additional economic benefit of those lives?

Time is money. We previously estimated the effect that reducing or increasing the time it takes to develop a new medicine would have on investing in innovation. Research shows that the more new medicines we have, the more life-years we save and the more economic value we generate.

Here's some other research on the impact of delayed drug approvals on life expectancy and life-years saved.

Remember, these are estimates. And we are always updating our analysis and information. In the meantime, we hope you find Value of Innovation Clock interesting and useful.