Photographer: Mikael Sjoberg / Bloomberg
Photographer: Mikael Sjoberg / Bloomberg
Medicines out AstraZeneca Plc and GlaxoSmithKline Plc to BeiGene Ltd. has agreed to cut the prices of some of their latest innovative drugs in China by an average of 50.6% to be covered by the country’s national insurance fund.
A total of 119 new therapies – treating everything from lung disease and diabetes to cancer and lupus – were added for coverage by the state-run medical safety net after lengthy negotiations, the National said. healthcare Security administration said in a message on his website Monday.
The average price cut is 10 percentage points less than last year a relief for both domestic and foreign drug manufacturers, who saw their profits diminish due to Beijing’s pressure to lower health care costs. Companies are eager to get their treatments on the list even at deep discounts to gain access to the Chinese pharmaceutical market, the world’s second largest.
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Patients in China will only have to pay a small fraction of the cost of these drugs out of pocket, as the lion’s share of the bill will be paid by the 2.44 trillion yuan ($ 373 billion) national medical insurance fund, which will provide more than 95 % of the country’s 1.4 billion inhabitants. The list has been updated annually with new entries since 2017, as Beijing accelerated its campaign to bring the best drugs to the growing middle class as quickly and cheaply as possible.
In total, Chinese patients can now rely on state insurance to pay for 2,800 medicines. Beijing also managed to cut prices by more than 40% on average for 14 drugs with annual sales of more than 1 billion yuan each. The new version of the reimbursement list for medical medicines will take effect on 1 March.
The drugs that made it onto the latest list include AstraZeneca’s cancer therapy Zoladex. Brukinsa, the first cancer drug from China to ever receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval, developed by Beijing-based BeiGene, also made the list.
Glaxo drugs Benlysta and Volibris, which treat lupus and high blood pressure in the lungs, respectively, made the list. Other top-of-the-line therapies from multinational corporations included a diabetes drug Novo Nordisk S / A, a drug for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease developed by Astra, and an ulcerative colitis therapy by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.
The latest inclusions include popular immune cancer therapies known as PD-1 inhibitors, cancer treatments that use the body’s immune system to fight tumors – a priority for Beijing, as China has about 4 million new cancer patients every year. Such treatments include those developed by Chinese companies BeiGene, Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co. and Shanghai Junshi Biosciences Co.
The list also highlights treatments for Covid-19, such as antivirals ribavirin and arbidol, although China has largely prevented flare-ups after the outbreak was brought under control in Wuhan a year ago.
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It is not known how deeply companies have committed to individual therapies. The national healthcare The safety administration has in the past entered into agreements with a number of drug manufacturers to withhold details of price cuts.
Competition in China has made significant sacrifices for foreign drugmakers. New drugs are often brought to the Chinese market at prices lower than they are sold in the West, but still face competition from a growing legion of Chinese biotech companies developing similar drugs that can be sold more. cheap.
Older drugs from global pharmaceutical companies that are no longer patented are also facing price cuts. In a separate national campaign in which Chinese public hospitals buy generic drugs in bulk, prices have fallen by as much as 90%.
– With help from John Liu, Claire Che and Dong Lyu