Japanese Price Cutting to Become More Frequent

Japanese Drug Pricing Cuts Expected To Be More Frequent

For decades Japan has cut prices on launched drugs every two years after launch. Anticipated pricing reforms will likely include reviewing drug reimbursements annually going forward according to Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association Director of International Affairs Takeshi Shigihara.

Japan has recently undertaken several aggressive price cuts for prescription drugs. Earlier this month, Chuikyo cut the price of cancer drug Opdivo nivolumab by 50%, effective February 2017. This past March, the authorities finalized price cuts for high-revenue products, including Harvoni ledipasvir/sofosbuvir and Sovaldi sofosbuvir. The HCV therapies were each discounted 31.7%.

The Japanese authorities are not expected to deny good prices for innovative drugs at launch but they will be subject to pricing cuts subsequently.

Highlights of Bay Area Bioscience Events from Week of Dec. 4, 2016

• Bio2Device Group, Tuesday Morning, Dec. 6, 2016; Speaker: Thor Rollins, Senior Scientist- Certified Microbiologist, Nelson Laboratories; Topic: “Have you done enough to meet new FDA Regulations for Biocompatibility Risk Assessment? “
• WIB- San Francisco, Tuesday Evening, Dec. 6, 2016;Event: “Holiday Party at Devil’s Canyon;” Date and Time: Tuesday December 6, 2016, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. PST
• ASQ Biomedical NCDG Group Wednesday Evening, Dec. 7, 2016; Event: 2016 Northern California / Bay Area Medical Device Industry Review & Hot Topics Open Forum Discussion
• BIOMEDevice MD&M, Dec. 7-8, 2016, Topic: “Setting the Beat in Medical Technology, Education and Innovation” 
• ASQ, Thursday Evening, Dec. 8, 2016, Event: “Mini-Quality Conference at ITU: An Evening with Quality -Opportunities & Learning”
• Stanford Bio-X Frontiers in Interdisciplinary Biosciences Seminar, Thursday Mid-day, Dec. 8, 2016, Topic: “The development of optical coherence tomography as a medical device”

You can download the details for the upcoming events this week and those through March 2017 with audreys-picks-dec-4-2016.

Audrey