4 October 2016 - Aiming to curb rising medical costs, the Japanese health ministry has decided to lower the government-sanctioned price of an expensive cancer treatment a year before its regular review.

Nivolumab (Opdivo), from Ono Pharmaceutical, is highly effective but costs an annual 35 million yen ($344,500) or so for a 60 kg adult. Treating 50,000 lung cancer patients with it for a year could run to 1.75 trillion yen, the Ministry of Finance's Fiscal System Council estimated this April.

In Japan, where national health insurance shoulders a high proportion of pharmaceutical costs, the government sets prices of prescription drugs. The officially sanctioned prices receive biennial reviews, with the next slated for the year starting April 2018. While the two-year cycle has been broken before in response to a consumption tax hike, it is highly unusual to revise the price of a single drug in an off year.

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