Western pharmaceutical companies have agreed to slash the prices of dozens of drugs in China, as the industry tries to strengthen its foothold in the world’s second-largest drug market, reported the Financial Times.
Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca, Gilead of the US, France’s Sanofi and Switzerland’s Roche are among the multinationals that have agreed with Beijing to cut the prices of 70 drugs by more than 60% on average in return for their inclusion in a state-run insurance scheme.
The cuts will affect several top-selling medicines, including Adalimumab, an arthritis treatment sold by US drugmaker AbbVie under the brand Humira.
In return for lower prices, the government in Beijing will add 70 drugs to its list of treatments eligible for co-payment. The imported drugs added to the insurance scheme will be sold at the “lowest prices worldwide” as a result of the latest round of negotiations, Xiong Xianjun, an official at China’s National Healthcare Security Administration, told reporters.
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