Posted by Michael Wonder on 10 Jun 2017
Japan Government scraps proposals for drug price cuts in policy guidelines
9 June 2017 - Japan has dropped proposals on price cuts for prescription drugs aimed at boosting the use of generic drugs, underscoring the government's struggle to rein in bulging social security costs for a rapidly ageing nation.
The step comes as Japan looks to boost the use of generics to 80% by September 2020 from about 56 percent now, thus saving the government hundreds of billions of yen every year.
To ease the burden on the national health insurance system, the government last month said it would consider having patients who prefer expensive advance prescription drugs pay the difference in cost over generic drugs.
