FPMAJ's prescription drug pricing plan continues to be discussed

Although a new proposal of Japan's National Health Insurance drug pricing, which the Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associations of Japan had submitted at a hearing of the NHI Drug Pricing Expert Subcommittee within the Chuikyo (the Central Social Insurance Medical Council) earlier this year (Marketletter July 21), was still criticized by both the payer and provider sides at the September 24 additional hearing, the expert panel has decided to put the plan "on review" with regard to its introduction in the near future.

In his additional explanation following that at the previous hearing, Akira Nagano, a member of the expert panel of the Chuikyo, who is chairman of the FPMAJ's Study Committee on NHI Drug Pricing and an executive of Daiichi Sankyo, said that the core of the new plan consists of maintaining the price of new drugs during their patent-valid period and introducing generic copies immediately after intellectual property expiration of the original products. This would enable generics to enter the market more easily, but would also help prevent the current downward tendency of the new drug prices whenever their revision is implemented, as well as reducing drug expenditure, he noted.

Total pharma market reduction envisaged