On the way to solve the problem of high price anticancer drugs in China

The movie "I am not the God of medicine" reflects people's dilemma when facing the high cost of cancer treatment, which has attracted widespread attention It is understood that for a long time, most of the effective drugs for cancer treatment in China have been imported, and the prices are mostly too high However, some effective new drugs are limited by the long approval process, so it is difficult for domestic patients to buy them I learned that in order to solve the problem of anticancer drugs, China is also actively taking action in recent years In recent years, China has made a series of combined efforts in promoting the price reduction of anticancer drugs, such as medical insurance access negotiation, import zero tariff, accelerating the approval of new drugs on the market abroad, encouraging drug innovation and imitation Stronger supporting policies and more space for reducing fees are on the way The author also learned that in 2018, the special negotiation on the access of anticancer drugs to medical insurance will begin After 2017, another batch of "life-saving drugs" are expected to enter the medical insurance market through negotiation It is understood that in 2017, 15 cancer treatment drugs, including Herceptin, rituximab and Vanke, reduced their prices through negotiation Previously, such targeted drugs, although effective, were more expensive Through negotiation, the average decrease of drug price was 44%, and the high decrease was 70%, which greatly reduced the economic burden of patients According to the industry, the entry of anti-cancer drugs into the medical insurance catalog is a "three win" for patients, enterprises and medical insurance, which will effectively balance the clinical needs of patients, reasonable profits of enterprises and fund bearing capacity For the anticancer drugs in the medical insurance catalog, the relevant head of the national medical insurance bureau also said that the next step would be to carry out special bidding procurement, and realize price reduction through market competition on the basis of fully considering the impact of tax reduction For the further price reduction of anticancer drugs, the industry believes that it needs the promotion of the National Health Insurance Bureau, the domestic Biopharmaceutical Enterprises to increase R & D efforts, and more clinical trials in hospitals Local governments, hospitals, pharmaceutical enterprises and agents should reduce the negotiation time and make comprehensive improvement in many aspects, so as to improve the level of security for patients with major and serious diseases There are many factors that cause "high price" anticancer drugs, such as the small research and development of similar drugs in China, the lagging production of generic drugs, and the lack of choice for patients In order to push the price reduction of anticancer drugs, more measures are needed to follow up   Experts said that to crack "drugs with high price", zero tariff, centralized bidding and procurement, national negotiation, inclusion in medical insurance, acceleration of the import and listing of innovative drugs, generic drug production and so on have certainly opened a good way to reduce the burden of price reduction, but they can't stop there In addition, relevant parties need to start from cracking the single agent system for drug import and the single agent sales system in China, so as to break the domestic phase In order to form an effective competition situation of foreign drug management, we need to solve the problems of substantial monopoly of foreign drugs, accelerate the development and listing of domestic alternative drugs, and speed up the production of generic drugs At present, cancer has become a major cause of death for Chinese residents According to the data, the market scale of anti-tumor drugs in China has exceeded 120 billion yuan in 2017 According to the data released by the National Cancer Center in February this year, 4.29 million new cancer cases occur every year in China At present, the 5-year survival rate of cancer patients in China is about 30%, but in developed countries in Europe and America it has reached 70% ~ 80% According to industry analysis, the reason for this gap lies in the more advanced R & D technology in Europe and the United States, its long-term investment and low drug price guarantee Some experts suggest that the state needs to further improve the pharmaceutical industry policy, improve the national new drug research and development system, enhance the national new drug innovation capacity, and fundamentally improve the accessibility of drugs It should be noted that the reason why some anticancer drugs with better efficacy are expensive is that most of them are monopolized by foreign pharmaceutical companies In order to reduce the drug price fundamentally, it is necessary to further improve the innovation ability of domestic pharmaceutical enterprises.