Japan's PM supports reform of drug pricing rules

The Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, last week held a meeting of the Council for Regulatory Reform (CRR). The council proposed to the Prime Minister revision of drug pricing rules so as to give higher reimbursement prices for innovative new drugs and encourage pharmaceutical companies to conduct more R&D in Japan.

It was presented as a fact, that pharmaceutical companies were not promoting clinical development of their new drugs in Japan, in favor of overseas market, mainly the USA and some European countries, where innovation was rewarded with higher prices, reports The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent.

On the other hand, the CRR also proposed a larger price reduction on off-patented drugs that had already been exposed to generic competition. Under the current rules, branded drugs suffer additional 4%-6% price cut in the first biannual drug price revision immediately after the launch of their generic competitors. The committee asked for enhancement of the price cut rules for the long-listed (branded but off-patent) drugs.