Prof. Liu Guo’en Attends Press Conference on New Medicare Reimbursement List
Dec 07-2021
On December 3rd, the National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) held a press conference to release an updated catalog of drugs covered by the national medical insurance system. Prof. Liu Guo’en of the NSD took part and spoke to the media in his position as the head of the pharma-economics expert group for the medicare reimbursement list. He’s PKU Bo Ya Distinguished Professor and Director of the NSD’s Academic Committee.
Based on pharma-economics, the new catalog achieved higher value for money spent, said Prof. Liu, adding that three major principles had been applied during the adjustment of the reimbursement list, one of which was ensuring both the affordability and innovation of drugs. As a result, the proportion of new drugs had increased significantly compared to that in the previous edition. Of the 23 major innovative drugs that had participated in negotiations to be included in the catalog, 22 were accepted. On average, it took them 14 months to cross the journey from obtaining approval for sale to securing a place in the catalog.
The renewed list also took in some important drugs with an eye on alleviating the financial burden of patients, including drugs for tumors, Alzheimer, cardiovascular diseases, as well as some rare diseases.
The new catalog has a total of 2860 types of drugs, of which 74 (in 21 clinical categories) are newly included to expand the coverage of diseases. To be formally implemented on January 1st, 2022, the updated catalog is expected to achieve accumulative cost savings of over 30 billion yuan for the patients in 2022.
