COPD affects over 390 million people, including more than 36 million in Europe, and is poised to be the leading cause of hospital admissions over the next decade worldwide.^1,2,3 In Europe, countries such as Ireland, Romania and Denmark have among the highest hospital admission rates for people with COPD, representing significant costs for health systems.⁴ Meanwhile, countries like Norway and Germany spend the most per patient on COPD management.⁵ Awareness is rising, and more stakeholders are taking a proactive approach to address the growing burden of COPD. However, it remains an underestimated and under-resourced disease. Innovation in COPD offers significant opportunities for more proactive patient care, where exacerbations and hospitalizations could be prevented. By investing in the latest wave of healthcare innovation and prioritizing preventative methods, the growing economic and patient burden of COPD can be mitigated.

Understanding the patient burden

To truly understand COPD, it’s critical to recognize its impact on patients. For most, COPD means a daily struggle with breathlessness, persistent coughing and increased fatigue as their lung function gradually deteriorates. These symptoms can severely limit their ability to do everyday tasks such as walking the dog, climbing stairs or even carrying groceries, impacting their quality of life and overall well-being.⁶ This, in turn, can lead to considerable financial burden for people affected by this condition due to limitations on workplace and home productivity, and the costs of medical treatment, impacting the EU’s competitiveness.⁶ And the picture gets worse when patients experience exacerbations.

The patient cost of COPD exacerbations, and resulting hospitalizations, is equally profound. Tragically, one in ten patients hospitalized for COPD will die during their stay.⁷ About one in four will not live to see another year,⁸ and half will succumb to the disease within five years.⁹  But even before these dire outcomes, the impact of COPD is felt in the diminished quality of life, frequent sick leave and increasing disability that patients endure between exacerbations, creating dependencies within families and adding to the emotional and financial strain.

Tragically, one in ten patients hospitalized for COPD will die during their stay.⁷ About one in four will not live to see another year,⁸ and half will succumb to the disease within five years.⁹

For individuals who recover, each exacerbation inflicts irreversible damage, significantly degrading lung function, increasing disability and severely impacting quality of life. This leads to a greater reliance on healthcare services over time, creating a vicious cycle of health decline. The disease also takes an immense emotional toll on families and caregivers, who stand witness to their loved one’s devastating disease progression and often bear the care burden. In the Netherlands, caregivers of COPD patients with exacerbations provide up to 14 hours of informal care weekly.¹⁰

In Spain, it’s estimated that over 220,000 caregivers are needed to support those with COPD-related disabilities.¹¹

Since my diagnosis with COPD, the biggest challenge for my wife and I is the uncertainty. I wake up every morning wondering if this will be a good day or a bad day. Will I be able to go about my usual activities or face a debilitating exacerbation?

Durham, person living with COPD

Currently, resources are often concentrated on managing advanced disease, missing the crucial opportunity for earlier and more effective intervention through disease-specific programs and early detection. Prioritizing prevention is essential to improving outcomes for patients and alleviating pressure on already strained health systems. A proactive shift toward prevention and sustained disease management is urgently needed.

Hospitalizations and the growing financial burden on health systems

Global COPD expenditures are projected to reach €3.7 trillion by 2050, with 45-70% of these costs linked to managing exacerbations. Comparatively, EU governments spent €1.25 trillion on healthcare overall in 2023, implying an increasing cost burden related to COPD in the coming years.^12,13,14 Remarkably, approximately 70 percent of the total costs associated with treating COPD stem directly from hospital stays.¹⁵

Collaborative efforts such as the Joint Action on Chronic Respiratory Diseases (JARED) and the MEP Lung Health Group are crucial for driving policy changes and improving COPD management across the EU.

Policymakers increasingly see COPD as a driver of hospital admissions: 41 percent now rank it among the top three causes of hospital admissions in their country behind only heart disease and stroke — a sharp rise from 8 percent in 2022.¹⁶

Although this awareness is rising, so are the costs. In Europe, the estimated annual medical cost of COPD ranges from €1,963 to over €10,701 per person among adults aged 45 years and older, depending on disease severity. COPD-related hospitalizations are 2-3 times more expensive than other disease-related hospitalizations.^17,18,19 This is primarily driven by longer stays, higher rates of intensive care unit use, a greater need for post-discharge support, and increased risk of readmissions, reflecting the complex and resource-intensive nature of managing exacerbations. Current COPD management focuses on symptom control, often overlooking the critical need to reduce exacerbations and hospitalizations.

Prioritizing early intervention and prevention: A call to action

While the challenges posed by COPD are significant, there is an opportunity to take decisive action. By implementing concerted, consistent and coordinated efforts to tackle COPD in a systemic way, we can mitigate its impact and improve patient outcomes. We can lead in this area, setting a standard for proactive COPD management and demonstrating the value of investing in early intervention and prevention.  

To address the multifaceted patient and health system costs of COPD, a shift toward proactive strategies is essential. There are already promising initiatives of such strategies being implemented across Europe, such as national lung health programs that emphasize early diagnosis in primary care settings and integrated vaccination programs for at-risk adults, demonstrating that progress is within reach through collaboration and shared learning.

Complementing these systemic efforts, patient engagement is a crucial component in effective COPD management. When patients are engaged and actively involved in their care, they are better equipped to recognize worsening symptoms and seek timely help. Tools like the COPD Exacerbation Recognition Tool play a vital role by increasing patient awareness of early signs and empowering them to respond quickly, potentially reducing the severity of flare-ups and avoiding costly hospitalizations.²⁰ Shifting the system from reactive crisis care toward proactive, preventative approaches and early intervention is what ultimately may keep more people out of hospital.

A lot of progress has been made on prioritizing the ongoing burden of COPD, but there is more to do. It’s time that we rethink our approach to care and ask ourselves, what more can we do to truly support patients and national healthcare systems? At GSK, we believe in working across the healthcare ecosystem and with governments to learn from one another, support new innovation, and build a system that prioritizes early intervention and prevention of unnecessary exacerbations and hospitalizations. It is our collective responsibility to act now. This should be seen not just as a medical imperative, but as a strategic investment in healthy populations and economic stability.

November 2025

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^1. Boers E, Barrett M, Su JG, et al. Global Burden of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Through 2050. JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Dec 1;6(12):e2346598. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.46598.

^2. Benjafield A, Tellez D, Barrett M, et al. An estimate of the European prevalence of COPD in 2050. European Respiratory Journal 2021;58(suppl 65):OA2866; doi: DOI: 10.1183/13993003.congress-2021.OA2866.

^3. Khakban, Amir et al. “The Projected Epidemic of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Hospitalizations over the Next 15 Years. A Population-based Perspective.” American journal of respiratory and critical care medicine vol. 195,3 (2017): 287-291. doi:10.1164/rccm.201606-1162PP. Accessed April 2025.

^4. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2022). Health at a glance: Europe 2022. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/507433b0-en

^5. Rehman, M., et al. (2021). Cost analysis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD): a systematic review. Health Economics Review, 11 : 31. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13561-021-00329-9.

^6.WHO. Fact Sheet: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Accessible at: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease-(copd) [last accessed October 2025]

^7. Sin DD. Should COPD stand for “comorbidity-related obstructive pulmonary disease”? Eur Respir J. 2015;46(4):901-2. doi: 10.1183/13993003.01112-2015

^8. Serra-Picamal X, Roman R, Escarrabill J, et al. Hospitalizations due to exacerbations of COPD: A big data perspective. Respir Med. 2018;145:219-225. doi: 10.1016/j.rmed.2018.01.008

^9. Suissa S, Dell’Aniello S, Ernst P. Long-term natural history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: severe exacerbations and mortality. Thorax. 2012;67(11):957–963. doi: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2011-201518. 

^10. Melles, M.C., et al. “The cost impact of informal care for patients with COPD and exacerbations in the Netherlands.” American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, vol. 211, no. Abstracts, May 2025, https://doi.org/10.1164/ajrccm.2025.211.abstracts.a3256.

^11. PMC, Europe. Europe PMC, europepmc.org/article/PMC/4334315. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.

^12. Chen S, Kuhn M, Prettner K, et al. The global economic burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for 204 countries and territories in 2020-50: a health-augmented macroeconomic modelling study. Lancet Glob Health. 2023;11(8):e1183-e1193. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(23)00217-6

^13. Koff PB, Min SJ, Freitag TJ, et al. 2021. Impact of Proactive Integrated Care on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Chronic Obstr Pulm Dis 8(1): 100-16

^14. Government Expenditure on Health – Statistics Explained – Eurostat, ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Government_expenditure_on_health. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.

^15. Hunter LC, Lee RJ, Butcher I, et al. Patient characteristics associated with risk of first hospital admission and readmission for acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) following primary care COPD diagnosis: a cohort study using linked electronic patient records. BMJ Open. (2016) 6:e009121.

^16. Ipsos (2025) Data on file: Global Policymakers’ Perspectives on COPD | Survey of Attitudes and Perceptions – Wave 2 Final Report (conducted on behalf of Global Allergy and Airways Patient Platform).

^17. Rehman AU, Hassali MAA, Muhammad SA, et al. The economic burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Europe: results from a systematic review of the literature. Eur J Health Econ. 2020;21:181–94.

^18. Agarwal D. COPD generates substantial cost for health systems. Lancet Glob Health. 2023;11:e1138-9.

^19. Løkke A, Lange P, Lykkegaard J, et al. Economic Burden of COPD by Disease Severity – A Nationwide Cohort Study in Denmark. Int J Chron Obstruct Pulmon Dis. 2021;16:603-613. doi: 10.2147/COPD.S295388

^20. Jones PW et al. (2022). The Development of a COPD Exacerbation Recognition Tool (CERT) to Help Patients Recognize When to Seek Medical Advice. International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, 17, 213‑222. DOI: 10.2147/COPD.S337644.