While in the past, the US, EU, and Japan dominated the global medical device market, things are changing as more new devices are being developed in Asia first, especially in China. Accordingly, Korea and China have recently announced new initiatives aimed at... Read More
China’s 11th round of national Volume-Based Procurement (VBP) came to an end in late October 2025 with all 55 tendered drug products awarded contracts across major therapeutic areas such as anti-infectives, oncology, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, lipid disorders, pain management, and allergy treatment.... Read More
Malaysia’s Medical Device Authority (MDA) and Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration (Thai FDA) have recently signed a Confidentiality Agreement and launched a three-month regulatory reliance pilot to accelerate medical device approvals and reduce duplicate reviews in each country. Announced in early December 2025,... Read More
The UK’s Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA) have established a new “Regulatory Innovation Corridor” to speed up patient access to innovative healthcare solutions. Companies will be able to work with both regulators at the... Read More
Korea has unveiled major reforms to its national health insurance drug pricing system to improve patient access to innovative medicines, especially for severe and rare diseases. Several weeks ago, the government submitted its “Proposal for Improving the Drug Pricing System” to the... Read More
China has strengthened its regulation of excessive prescription practices through a new National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) notice issued on November 3, 2025, alongside the nationwide Insurance Fraud “Hundred-Day Campaign.” The measure aims to crack down on fraud, abuse, and improper use of medical... Read More
The Parliament of Singapore made a considerable effort towards enhancing the country’s digital health infrastructure via the introduction of the Health Information Bill (HIB) on November 5, 2025. The Health Information Bill has been widely anticipated for several years and dates back... Read More
Japan’s Cabinet Office has recently approved a 330 billion JPY (2.1 billion USD) support package to encourage drug discovery and strengthen the country’s biopharma sector. Key allocations include nearly 50 billion JPY (323 million USD) for bioclusters and biotech infrastructure, 20 billion... Read More
Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) plans to make its approval system the world’s fastest by sharply reducing review timelines for drugs, biosimilars, and medical devices under its 2026 administrative plan. Biosimilar reviews will be shortened from up to 420... Read More
Korea has recently rolled out a more robust series of regulatory reforms and actions aimed at streamlining patient access to cutting-edge medical technologies over the past year. The advances signal Korea’s growing ambition to become a global leader and incubator in the digital health and advanced medical device sectors. Market Access... Read More