Japan's Chuikyo continues discussing FPMAJ's pharmaceutical pricing plan

Some members of the Expert Committee on National Health Insurance drug pricing within Japan's Central Social Insurance Medical Council  (Chuikyo) have demonstrated an understanding of the new NHI medicines  costing proposal put forward by the Federation of Pharmaceutical  Manufacturers' Associations of Japan. This calls for the price of new  drugs being maintained during a patent's validity, the so-called, drug  price special maintenance system, although most members have continued  to criticize it at the recent Chuikyo meeting.

Contradictory views

Nobuo Yamamoto, vice president of the Japan Pharmaceutical Association,  a medical provider side representative on the Committee, said that the  FPMAJ's plan was acceptable since small companies have already  developed new drugs that have good efficacy. Opposing this opinion was  Atsushi Fujiwara, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Japan Medical  Association, also on the medical provider side, who said that "the plan  seems to be favorable for big makers capable of developing innovative  drugs, resulting in big makers' monopolizing the markets and fixing  prices at a high level."