Nexavar excluded from Japan's DPC

Japan's Chuikyo (the Central Social Insurance Medical Council) has decided to exclude Nexavar (sorafenib), an anticancer drug marketed in that country by the Japanese subsidiary of Germany's Bayer HealthCare from an application for lump-sum reimbursement in hospitals adopting the diagnosis procedure combination reimbursement system.

The criteria to admit or exclude an expensive drug from the DPC in a certain situation is because of its excessive discrepancy between the National Health Insurance cost of a new drug and the DPC reimbursement price for an existing therapy, to prevent too heavy a financial burden.

Nexavar, with the price of 5,426.20 yen ($52.09) for a 200mg tablet, was added to the NHI price list on April 18. Use of the anti-renal cell cancer drug will cost about 634,000 yen per month while existing treatments in the reimbursement system are 367,530 yen per month. However, reportedly, Nexavar will be integrated into the lump-sum in the next revision of the medical fees in 2010.