[Reporter's view]National Security & the Price Policy

of New Essential Drugs

Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Park Min-soo reaffirmed that the pharmaceutical bio-industry is directly related to national security and expressed his belief to support the pharmaceutical bio-industry by reorganizing the drug price system.

 

It said it will give some form of benefit to pharmaceutical companies that make medicines using domestic raw materials and pharmaceutical companies that are reluctant to make due to their low profitability, and actively operate a public-private consultative body to effectively work on new drug preferential laws developed by innovative pharmaceutical companies.

 

Expectations from the domestic pharmaceutical industry have also swelled due to Vice Minister Park's clear willingness to improve the drug price system.

 

The expressions of pharmaceutical companies, which have expressed the need to improve the reasonable drug price system toward the government every year, seem to be brightening due to Vice Minister Park's blueprint for drug price policy.

 

In the end, among pharmaceutical raw materials and national essential medicines imported in large quantities from China and India, drug price measures are likely to become visible soon for items that require self-sufficiency through domestic production.

 

It is time for raw material companies and essential drug manufacturers to read the needs of ingredients or items the government believes are urgently needed for self-sufficiency in Korea.

 

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, KPBMA, KODC, and pharmaceutical experts have already started to list domestic self-sufficiency materials and items, and according to Vice Minister Park's policy, the policy to strengthen domestic self-sufficiency is expected to continue to expand in the future.

 

The National Assembly's special law on the pharmaceutical industry, which has been pointed out for years, is likely to materialize the preferential treatment of new drug prices for innovative pharmaceutical companies soon.

 

Attention is focusing on whether legislation that stipulates the national compensation system for innovative new drugs as the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act can be realized.

 

At a meeting of the government-run public-private consultative body, pharmaceutical organizations such as KPBMA need to actively submit their opinions to create reasonable drug-friendly measures.

 

The Ministry of Health and Welfare should drastically improve the supply of essential drugs or out of stock, and design a drug price policy that can speed up the development of new drugs in global blockbusters.

 

"I don't even want a drug preference.

 

We should think about improving the drug price system so that does not recur in frustration of some pharmaceutical circles, saying, "We hope that the government will actively introduce a policy to exempt or suspend the follow-up management mechanism for drugs that have contributed to reducing health insurance finances." As COVID-19 has been prolonged for more than three years, the pharmaceutical bio-industry has soon become a national security industry.

 

These days, the COVID-19 virus, which has persistently plagued mankind, is finally slowing down.

 

Advanced overseas countries such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States, and Japan are assessing whether they will be able to lift the international public health emergency caused by COVID-19 as of May.

 

It is feared that the government's perception of national security and willingness to improve the drug price system, which has grown further due to COVID-19, will be shaken along with the downward revision of the crisis stage.

 

Only when the Pandemic crisis caused by the new virus recurred in the near future should we not rush to supply and demand essential drugs to cope with infectious diseases necessary for national quarantine.

 

It is hoped that the domestic pharmaceutical bio-industry and the government will agree to prepare a reasonable drug price environment to create a worry-free country for any type of national security crisis in the future.