10th external reference pricing reeval meeting is held

The 10th meeting will be held on the 5th... will it be final?

The meeting, which was scheduled on the 27th of last month was postponed...disagreement exists on the source of reference for foreign drug prices

The 10th meeting for the external reference pricing reevaluations is scheduled to be held this Friday (July 5).

 

The meeting, which was scheduled to be held on June 27th, has been postponed to this week.

 

The meeting between the government and the pharmaceutical industry, which has been held since November last year, is being held for the 10th time this time.

 

It will be interesting to see if the two sides will be able to conclude their talks through this 10th meeting.

 

According to industry sources on the 3rd, the 10th meeting on the reevaluation of foreign drug prices is scheduled for the 5th.

 

The government and the pharmaceutical industry will be meeting after a month since the 9th round of talks that was held on the 10th of last month.

 

At the 9th meeting, the government reportedly expressed its intention to end the discussions.

 

It said that it had gathered enough opinions over the 8 months of talks.

 

However, the pharmaceutical industry believes that the matter requires further discussion, as well as the postponement of the external reference pricing reevaluations.

 

On how to compare the price, which was the most controversial issue, the plan to compare the weighted average of the A8 (Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States) countries’ insurance ceiling price after excluding the highest and lowest price with Korea’s insurance ceiling price, is likely to become the set option.

 

The government notified the industry of this approach at the 8th meeting, and a similar approach was used in the recently concluded research service as well.

 

The industry is concerned that the domestic price ceiling will be higher than that of the external reference price if the formula excludes the U.S., where generic prices are high, resulting in a large price cut.

 

They are opposing the government's proposal due to this, but since it is unlikely that the plan will be withdrawn, they are focusing on revising the remaining details.

 

In particular, the government and the industry have different opinions on the sources of referencing the drug price.

 

The government is using publicly available drug prices in Germany and Canada, but the industry is arguing to base the pharmaceutical manufacturer’s selling price.

 

Also, the industry requested the sum price of the single drugs be ensured for combination drugs.

 

However, the government holds all the cards in the discussion.

 

The industry believes that the government is likely to hasten the external reference pricing reevaluations as a way to save money, as it has recently invested additional health insurance finances to expand medical school admissions.

 

A pharmaceutical industry official said, “I don't understand the government's logic for reducing domestic generic drug prices through the external reference pricing system when even Switzerland, a pharmaceutical powerhouse, has recently raised generic drug prices due to supply instability.”