Tuesday 21 May 2019

A Quick Review On International Reference Pricing China And Japan

By Edward Stone


Over the past decades, IRP has increasingly been adopted by most European countries like UK, Germany, France, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, and Asia, among others. The healthcare reform has deepened, making most of these countries to eliminate the traditional cost-based costing methodology. They have thus proposed a new costing strategy that is based on market conditions, the ability to pay as well as negotiations. This has made IRP become an essential component of the considerations. This article will give you a better understanding of the International Reference Pricing China and Japan.

IRP has created a significant impact in most countries, like China and Japan. This pricing methodology has limited the flexibility that companies have. Therefore, companies can no longer offer differentiated costing solutions. The IRP policies have increased the interconnection between markets. This has made the optimizing of launch sequence to be a complicated exercise. Thus, some companies are still feeling affected by the IRP.

Nevertheless, these changes in the costing methodology are critical in monitoring and maintaining the price of many pharmaceuticals in most countries. However, countries should ensure that they understand the impact that this methodology creates. This policy is used by several countries to set the price of pharmaceuticals across the world. It, therefore, has a huge impact. The focus of IRP is to assess the impact of referencing and recommend ways that will be best in maximizing revenues.

In 2009, the Chinese government established a healthcare reform program whose main aim was to control the healthcare expenditure. Also, the program was aimed at increasing the quality of care. Therefore, a new drug costing policy was initiated by NDRC in 2015. The rising costs of pharmaceutical products drove this new pricing policy. This made the market value of the Western pharmaceuticals in this country to extraordinarily rise. This steady and fast rise did not escape the eyes of the authorities.

Most industries have now agreed to take part in the reduction of prices of some pharmaceuticals by 67 percent. The government initiated this program to make sure that more people were able to access and afford the pharmaceuticals. Several drugs like Iressa, Conmana, and Viread were impacted.

The IRP introduction is perceived as a means of setting new prices to initiate new launches. So many discussions about this issue have arisen. These debates argue that no particular country should set a higher price on the pharmaceuticals than the prices that have been approved. Thus, referencing should be done from neighboring countries.

Discussions regarding the application of IRP are still ongoing. Thus, the exact prices for most other drugs are yet to be decided. Meanwhile, the policy continues, and countries are urged to continue applying the IRP policy. They should also reference against other neighboring countries to create harmony in the prices.

The IRP was ideally initiated for the good of the people. This means that pharmaceutical products will continue being affordable to most people. This will, in return, significantly improve the healthcare sector. Therefore, most people can now easily access even the drugs that were initially too costly. This is thus a good thing for most countries.




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