China seeks to promote the drug “innovative” products by pharmaceutical laboratories, foreign nationals. To this end, the chinese government has decided to add new treatments to its list of medicines covered by their health Insurance system. In total, 36 drugs -31 “from the west”- including cancer, among the most sold in the world, such as Revlimid from Celgene for multiple myeloma (6.9 billion dollars of financial benefits in 2016), or Velcade (for multiple myeloma) of Johnson & Johnson, have been selected, announced the ministry of human Resources and social Security on Wednesday.
Rock is the main laboratory is a beneficiary of the transaction. He placed four cancer on this list: the Herceptin, Rituxan that the Tarceva and Avastin, which each generate more than $ 1 billion of revenue per year in the world.
Discounts of up to 70 %
In exchange for coverage of their drugs by the health system chinese, the laboratories have agreed to discounts of 44 % on average, and up to 70 % for certain molecules. Thus, the new price, the vial of 440 mg Herceptin, which represents several injections would be around $ 1,000 after rebates, according to the specialized site Fierce Pharma.
These discounts granted to show the motivation of the big pharmas to develop in the 2nd global drug market, where the number of chronic diseases increases and the health Insurance is gradually gaining in efficiency. “China is the emerging country that made the greatest efforts in health”. With Russia, “China has set the target of winning a year of life expectancy in the 5 years to come,” explained Marc Danzon, former WHO regional director for Europe.