Article Text
Abstract
Introduction New targeted therapies have changed cancer treatment in the past decades. However, high prices of targeted anticancer medications have increased economic burden for both patients and health insurance systems. In July 2017, China implemented combined medication price negotiation and mandatory reimbursement policies for 15 targeted anticancer medications. This study assesses effects of the policy on hospital procurement prices, volumes and spending.
Methods Using a quasi-experimental interrupted time series design, we analysed procurement data from the Chinese Medical Economic Information of 789 public hospitals in 30 provinces between January 2016 and September 2018. The intervention group consisted of 15 targeted anticancer medications with negotiated prices in 2017. The comparison group consisted of six targeted anticancer medications without negotiated prices by 2018. The effective date of the policy was September 2017.
Results After the implementation of the 2017 medication price negotiation and reimbursement policy, cost per defined daily dose (DDD) of the 15 targeted anticancer medications dropped US$71.21 on average from an average US$169.24/DDD before (p=0.000). Compared with what would have happened without the intervention, cost/DDD of price-negotiated medications decreased by 48.9% (p=0.000), procurement volumes increased by 143.0% (p=0.000) and hospital medication spending decreased by 6.9% (p=0.146).
Conclusions The 2017 medication price negotiation and reimbursement policy decreased targeted medication procurement costs per DDD, increased volumes procured and at least temporarily contained spending. These changes should result in better access to and affordability of targeted anticancer medications in China.
- cancer
- health policy
- intervention study
Data availability statement
Data was obtained from a third party and are not publicly available.
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Data availability statement
Data was obtained from a third party and are not publicly available.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary Data
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Footnotes
Handling editor Lei Si
Contributors YZ and XG conceptualised and undertook the analyses, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. AKW provided input into the analyses and critically reviewed and modified the initial and subsequent drafts. All authors refined versions of and approved the final manuscript. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted.
Funding This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.71774005). AKW received partial support from the Department of Population Medicine Ebert Award.
Disclaimer The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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