Government moves to lower prices of cancer treatments

Widespread debate

According to Yu Jingjin, head of the drug administration at the National Health Commission, the high cost of drugs is a major concern for many cancer patients, even after reimbursement by medical care insurance programs.

As a result, some patients use e-commerce platforms to buy more-affordable generic versions of antineoplastic drugs produced overseas, despite several safety risks, the commission said.

The price issue became the subject of widespread public debate in 2014, when Lu Yong, a leukemia patient from Wuxi, Jiangsu province, was detained by police and charged with selling fake drugs.

Lu had actually bought generic antineoplastic drugs for himself and a number of fellow leukemia patients a decade earlier, in 2004, via a legal internet platform in India.

At the time, the imported patented treatment, called Gleevec and developed by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, sold for about 24,000 yuan ($3,770) a box in China.

However, it was not included in medical care insurance programs, meaning patients would have to spend almost 300,000 yuan a year on the drug but would not be reimbursed.

Rather than pay an exorbitant price, Lu, a wealthy businessman, turned to an Indianmade generic version called Veenat, which sold for about 200 yuan a box.

Lu was eventually released in January 2015 after the prosecutors withdrew the charges following petitions from more than 300 people with leukemia who called for his release.