[Reporter’s View] Accepting drugs used by very few patients

How should Korea embrace cutting-edge targeted anticancer therapies that are used by a very few patients into the system?

It's the same 'cancer', but different.

 

So how should we regard these new anticancer drugs that target only a very few among all patients that have the same type of cancer?

 

The cancer types that we commonly refer to, such as liver cancer, stomach cancer, and lung cancer are just major categories used, and the specific condition of each patient is classified in more detail.

 

According to the specific class of cancer, the difficulty of treatment may vary even for tumors that originate from the same organ and affect a varying number of patients.

 

The development of precision medicine is already heralding a shift in the prescription standards from organs to genes.

 

In other words, the era of personalized healthcare has now arrived but is still regarded as an unfamiliar concept by many.

 

Korea is still having difficulty accepting cutting-edge targeted anticancer therapies that show an effect regardless of cancer type according to each patient’s identified gene mutation.

 

In this sense, targeted anticancer therapies and cancer immunotherapies that have previously been listed are experiencing considerable difficulties in the process of extending their reimbursement.

 

This is due not only to the high price of the drugs but also because the drugs need to undergo value assessments again and reestimate their amount of use.

 

This is the key framework that sustains Korea's national health insurance system.

 

However, one of the characteristics of the recently developed new drugs is that the number of subject patients, that is, the number of patients confirmed with the specific genetic mutations that allow the use of such new drugs is very small.

 

In other words, there are not many people who are eligible to use the new drugs.

 

Less than 1% of all solid cancer patients have a rare type of solid cancer, and in terms of diagnosis, around 200 are diagnosed with such rare conditions in Korea.

 

The typical standard-of-care therapies (existing drugs) do not work well in these patients.

 

This was why industry voices have been on the need to redefine rare diseases.

 

In other words, the number of patients corresponding to each treatment option should be reflected rather than the number of patients that are affected by the same disease.

 

Of course, such redefinition would require systematic and detailed discussions.

 

However, the time has now come for Korea to consider how to reimburse the new targeted anticancer drugs whose use has increased and targets reduced.

 

Korea's current system is not the issue.

 

Korea just need to consider how to solve the problem regarding the increasing number of anticancer drugs difficult to reimburse through the current system.