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news.Japan's new pricing mechanism will not reflect any drastic changes in drug pricing policies but will focus on containing healthcare spending of the government quoted PharmaTimes, citing a report from Decision Resources.
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According to the report, the latest pricing proposals allow for an increase in premiums to be awarded and, for innovative drugs, the premium range will be increased. Japan’s Central Social Insurance Medical Council (Chuikyo) has announced that the next biennial drug price review, to be implemented from April, 2008 will include price cuts of around 5.2%. The new round of measures will also include incentives to boost the use of generics. It is expected that from April, 2008, the average price cut for new products facing generic competition will be in the range of 4%-6%.
Drugs whose sales have exceeded the forecasts on which their initial price listings were based, like the antihypertensives including Banyu/Merck & Co’s Nu-Lotan (losartan) and Preminent (losartan plus hydrochlorothiazide), Boehringer Ingelheim/Astellas’s Micardis (telmisartan), Daiichi Sankyo’s Olmetec (olmesartan), Novartis’s Diovan (valsartan) and Takeda’s Blopress (candesartan) will face extraordinary price cuts. Also qualifying for repricing will be a number of antidepressants, including Astellas/Meiji Seika/Solvay’s Depromel/Luvox (fluvoxamine), GlaxoSmithKline’s Paxil (paroxetine) and Pfizer’s J-Zoloft (sertraline).