Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA), a division of the Taiwanese MHLW, has announced a new program to fund new cancer drugs. The goal is to expedite the incorporation of new cancer drugs into the national healthcare scheme. The program is called the Operational Principles for Temporary Payment of New Cancer Drugs. This program identifies the cancer drugs permitted for temporary payment, the process to determine what the temporary payment will be, and when the payments can be revoked.
New cancer drugs and/or new indications that have finished Phase 3 trials and have shown great patient improvement that have not been previously included in Taiwan’s health insurance are eligible. For drug companies that want to apply, they must submit to the NHIA a detailed plan for temporary payment. In addition, if the revenue of the drug is over $17 million during the first 5 years of sales, then the specific drug manufacturers must also send in a pharmacoeconomic evaluation report. This is a huge step forward for healthcare in Taiwan, which over the last 15 years has continued to cut drug reimbursements and made it harder for its patients to get new state-of-the-art drugs.
Written by: Ames Gross – President and Founder, Pacific Bridge Medical (PBM)
Mr. Gross founded PBM in 1988 and has helped hundreds of medical companies with regulatory and business development issues in Asia. He is recognized nationally and internationally as a leader in the Asian medical markets. Mr. Gross has a BA degree, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia University.