[Reporter's view] Preferential pharmaceutical alternative

that reflects innovation value

Slow administration must stop

The government appears to be slow to announce a plan to reform the drug pricing system, which includes measures to give preferential prices for drugs that reflect the value of innovation.

 

Although we have already held several consultative meetings with representatives of domestic and foreign pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, it is becoming increasingly late to present results on how to specifically evaluate innovation value and provide preferential drug prices.

 

Initially, it was expected that the government would announce a plan to improve the drug price system in September last September for new drugs.

 

The Ministry of Health and Welfare's plan was to make a final announcement as soon as possible based on the results of five public-private consultations on drug price system reform from February to June of this year.

 

However, since there was no specific plan, the release was further delayed due to reasons such as a government audit.

 

The establishment of preferential drug price regulations that reflect the value of innovation is an issue that the National Assembly has also proposed for several years, raising the need for improvement.

 

The special bill on the pharmaceutical industry, proposed by People Power Party lawmaker Seo Jeong-sook, is the core of the bill, which establishes a pharmaceutical and bio innovation committee under the Prime Minister's direct control and mandates additional preferential treatment of the upper salary limit for drugs manufactured by innovative pharmaceutical companies.

 

Park Min-soo, Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare, has promised to establish and implement a practical system since the beginning of this year since taking office in relation to the plan to reform the drug price system to reflect innovation values.

 

At a meeting held in person with the Professional Journalists Association in February of this year, Vice Minister Park Min-soo said, "Like the U.S.

 

bio executive order, our country will create an incentive system to convert essential medicines and medicines using domestic raw materials to domestic production and reflect them in drug prices." It was revealed.

 

Even during the review of Rep.

 

Seo Jeong-sook's bill, Vice Minister Park expressed concern over converting the drug price preferential clause for innovative pharmaceutical companies into a mandatory/mandatory regulation and announced plans to clearly create and implement a policy of preferential drug prices for drugs that have proven their innovative value even if not converted.

 

there is.

 

Furthermore, this year's National Assembly inspection is reviewing a plan to improve the drug price system to appropriately compensate for the innovation value of new drugs in order to prevent 'Korea passing' and promote the overseas expansion of new domestic drugs and has responded that it will create a policy of preferential drug prices for drugs using domestic raw materials.

 

In the end, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has announced throughout this year that it will prepare a plan to reform the drug price system to reflect innovation values, but it is regrettable that it is still difficult to examine the specific implications.

 

In the past, in response to criticism that the drug price system needed to be reformed, the Ministry of Health and Welfare repeatedly stated that it would be difficult to come up with a drug price reform plan that would only give preference to domestic industries due to reasons such as WTO trade friction.

 

However, after realizing that the pharmaceutical industry is directly linked to national security due to the prolongation of the COVID-19 pandemic, a signal was sent to protect the domestic industry without any trade friction and to provide corresponding compensation to medicines that showed innovative levels of efficacy and safety.

 

Sent several times.

 

Domestic and foreign biopharmaceutical companies that are manufacturing and importing pharmaceuticals in Korea may also have participated in public-private consultative meetings amid this signal.

 

It is understandable at first glance that the Ministry of Health and Welfare is delaying the release of the inevitable reform plan in the process of designing a more detailed and practical drug price preferential policy based on the results of the consultative body discussions.

 

However, from the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry, which is anxiously awaiting the improvement plan, the delay in the release of the Ministry of Health and Welfare's reform plan without any mention is hopeless.

 

It can be torture.

 

Complaints regarding pharmaceutical companies' drug price system reform have already been submitted to the Ministry of Health and Welfare after several meetings.

 

The government's will to prepare a plan to reform the drug price system should not be weakened due to the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

We hope that the drug pricing system reform plan, which will encourage pharmaceutical companies to develop new and improved drugs, increase their chances of entering the global market, and motivate them to manufacture drugs using domestic raw materials instead of cheap Indian and Chinese raw materials, will be revealed before the end of the fall.