Negotiating Medical Insurance Drug Prices: The Role in Reducing Costs of Orphan Drugs for Rare Diseases

Document Type : Letter to Editor

Authors

1 Department of Clinical Pharmacy, National Children’s Medical Center, Children’s Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China

2 NHC Key Laboratory of Health Technology Assessment, Department of Health Economics, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Abstract

Negotiating Medical Insurance Drug Prices: The Role in Reducing Costs of Orphan Drugs for Rare Diseases

Keywords


Dear Editor,

 

There are 20 million patients with rare diseases in China, and over 200 000 new patients are diagnosed each year. In 2018, the Chinese government identified the first batch of rare diseases, which included 121 conditions. Drugs developed for rare diseases (orphan drugs) are often prohibitively expensive for most families, making their availability and affordability a recurring topic in literature.1 The global challenge of ensuring equitable access to treatment for rare diseases has gained much attention. ...(Read more...)

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