MSD’s Cancidas will retain premium pricing for up to 5 yrs

Even after the release of its generic

1-year first-in-class premium + 2-year less than 3 year premium + 2-year DREC0deliberated premium

Will be able to retain a price at the 70% level of the highest price after generic entry...until May next year

MSD's antifungal injection Cancidas’s premium pricing will be maintained for 5 years after generic entry.

 

Originally, the price should have been adjusted to 53.55% of the highest price, but for various reasons, its price has remained at the level of 70% of the highest price.

 

According to the industry sources on the 6th, Cancidas’s drug pricing premium was supposed to end on the 1st of this month, but the pricing premium was extended for another year according to the opinion of the Drug Reimbursement Evaluation Committee.

 

As a result, the price of Cancidas 50mg will remain at KRW 215,977 and Cancidas 70mg at KRW 275,989.

 

Sam Chung Dang Pharm’s Casfun Inj, the only generic version of Cancidas, also maintained its markup, and its price ceiling will remain at KRW 188,198 for Casfun Inj 50mg and at KRW 238,253 for Casfun Inj 70mg for another year.

 

In principle, after the entry of generics, the price of the original drug drops to 70% of the highest price through ex officio adjustment, and after 1 year, it becomes the same price as its generic, set at 53.55% of the highest price.

 

However, the price of Cancidas remains at the 70% level for 5 years.

 

In the meantime, the principle of equal pricing for generic drugs has been broken.

 

In June 2020, the price of Cancidas was adjusted to its current price following generic entry.

 

The adjustment was temporary and set to last until May 2021.

 

However, a year later, the number of generic companies remained below three, so the markup was maintained for 2 more years.

 

Then, in April of last year, the 3-year premium pricing period passed, but the company wanted to extend the period for reasons such as ensuring a stable supply of the product, and DREC accepted the request and decided to maintain the premium pricing for one more year.

 

This year, despite the expiration of the premium pricing period (3+1year), the premium pricing period was extended another year until May 2025 on the basis that if a drug manufacturer, contract manufacturer, distributor, or importer wants to extend the premium pricing period for reasons such as ensuring a stable supply of products, the period can be extended following DREC opinion.

 

In January 2021, the Ministry of Health and Welfare reorganized the premium pricing system to allow up to 5 years of premium pricing through 1+2+2, including 1 year of markup upon initial registration, up to 2 years of premium pricing maintenance for drugs with 3 or fewer manufacturers, and 2 years of additional premium pricing granted after DREC deliberation when the pharmaceutical company wishes to extend the premium pricing.

 

Cancidas’s premium pricing is being maintained for up to 5 years through the new system.

 

Cancidas’s sales in Korea had been KRW 8 billion in 2022 (IQVIA).

 

The drug is used for ▲ Empirical therapy for presumed fungal infections in febrile, neutropenic patients; ▲treatment of Candidemia and Other Candida Infections; ▲ treatment of esophageal candidiasis; and ▲ treatment of invasive aspergillosis.

 

Sam Chung Dang Pharm was the only Korean pharmaceutical company to launch a generic version of Cancidas in May 2020.

 

Since then, Sam Chung Dang Pharm ‘Casfun Inj ‘ has been the only generic version that entered the market.