Drug makers including Roche and Novaris slash medicine prices in China to get on reimbursement list
- National Healthcare Security Administration adds 70 medicines to approved list
- Chinese citizens can use their state medical insurance to cover a significant portion of the cost of drugs on the list
Drug makers including Roche and Novartis have agreed to cut the prices of some of their newest medicines by an average of 61 per cent in China to get on a national reimbursement scheme list, regulators said.
Inclusion on the list is likely to boost sales by opening up markets in smaller and less-affluent cities, but some industry insiders said that offering large price cuts only in China could spark criticism of drug companies in other markets.
Seventy new drugs, including Roche’s breast cancer treatment Pertuzumab, sold under the trade name Perjeta, and Novartis’s dermatitis treatment Omalizumab, branded as Xolair, will be added to the list, the National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) said on its website on Thursday.
Chinese citizens are allowed to use their state medical insurance to cover a significant portion of the cost of drugs named on the list.
Almost all the imported drugs added in the latest update had the “lowest prices globally”, the NHSA said in its statement.
“China is and will be the ultimate high-volume, low-price market and so international companies feel that they’ll have to take a big pay cut but make up for the volume,” said Brad Loncar, chief executive of Loncar Investments.