The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is negotiating with pharmaceutical companies over drug prices in the hope of extending National Health Insurance (NHI) coverage for breast, lung and colorectal cancer treatments to include immuno-oncology, NHI Administration Director-General Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said yesterday.
NHI payouts for new drugs stood at NT$6 billion (US$181.58 million) last year, double the amount in 2023, Shih said, adding that with the inclusion of about NT$5 billion for cancer treatments, the NHI expects to pay about NT$10 billion this year.
About 880,000 people are treated for cancer in Taiwan each year, with breast cancer patients being the largest group at about 180,000, he said.
Photo: Lin Hui-chin, Taipei Times
The development of new drugs and precision medicines would help find the best treatments, he said.
The FDA wants to provide payments for all of the treatments it approves for breast, lung and colorectal cancers, but it is in talks with pharmaceutical companies due to the significant funding such an endeavor requires, he said.
The NHI’s payouts for cancer are expected to match global rates this year, but the agency in the second half of this year would discuss payment schemes based on treatment quality — with a focus on breast cancer treatments — to ensure that the money is spent where it is needed, Shih added.
Taiwan Breast Cancer Society president Chen Chou-tung (陳守棟) said that antibody-drug conjugates last month became eligible for NHI payouts, so it is up to doctors to prescribe the treatment, which would reduce cancer-induced mortality rates.
Article 7 of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act (藥事法) defines “new drugs” as drugs with new compositions, therapeutic compounds or methods of administration that have been verified and recognized by health authorities.
The government’s Healthy Taiwan policy aims to reduce national cancer-induced mortality rates by one-third.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
Foreign ministers of leading Western democracies sought to show a united front in Canada yesterday after seven weeks of rising tensions between US allies and US President Donald Trump over his upending of foreign policy on Ukraine and imposing of tariffs. The G7 ministers from the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US, along with the EU, convened in the remote tourist town of La Malbaie, nestled in the Quebec hills, for two days of meetings that in the past have broadly been consensual on the issues they face. Top of the agenda for Washington’s partners would be getting a
RSS