With the COVID-19 pandemic cutting deeply into revenues of healthcare providers across Japan, health authorities are considering postponing cuts to prices for pharmaceuticals offered by the country’s nationalized health insurance system scheduled to go into effect next April. The scheduled price cuts are designed to address large gaps between prices for those products offered by Japan’s National Health Insurance system and market prices. But some manufacturers and wholesalers contend that implementing the price cuts in 2021 would put additional burden on an industry that is already strained. Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW) plans to hold hearings on the issue soon.
