Japan’s drug pricing authority starts debates on institutionalization of premium system

It was three weeks ago when the Central Social Insurance Medical Council (CSIMC) held a meeting and listened to the pharmaceutical industry’ request to make the premium system permanent, writes The Pharma Letter's Japan correspondent.

However, in the kickoff meeting of CSIMC for the reform of pricing system last week, the premium system that had made half of patented drugs immune from biannual price cuts since 2010 was harassed by representatives from both payers and clinicians.

The CSIMC (known as Chuikyo in Japanese) was a government council consisting of 20 members, seven each representing health insurance funds (payers) and medical service providers (doctors), and six representing public interests or the neutral. In addition, 10 representatives from healthcare industries (non-voting specialists) were allowed to attend the CSIMC meetings. The 53-year-old committee had always been slow to accept changes to the system and seems to have remained the same even after the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office set the basis for a reform plan through its Council of Regulatory Reforms (The Pharma Letter, August 5).