久久亚洲国产成人影院-久久亚洲国产的中文-久久亚洲国产高清-久久亚洲国产精品-亚洲图片偷拍自拍-亚洲图色视频

Global EditionASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
Business
Home / Business / Policies

VAT cut offers hope to rare disease patients

By Hu Yongqi | China Daily | Updated: 2019-02-19 07:48
Share
Share - WeChat
[Photo by Shi Yu/China Daily]

State Council decision will see tax lowered by 13 percentage points from next month 

Fang Haoran, 14, from Huaiyang county, Henan province, was diagnosed with Gaucher's disease, a genetic disorder that enlarges the liver and spleen, in 2015.

It has prevented him from going to school and will kill him if not treated.

To go on living, Haoran needs a special drug, Cerezyme, but each dose costs around 23,000 yuan ($3,380). He should receive 85 doses a year for the rest of his life, but that would cost close to 2 million yuan a year and his family cannot afford that. With government assistance and money borrowed from relatives, Haoran received eight doses in 2017 and four last year.

His father, Fang Yulin, said that because the cost of the medicine cannot be reimbursed through the social security system, the drug is too expensive, and the family will not be able to afford any more this year.

But Fang, who runs a small shop, said he will not give up on saving his son and his biggest wish is to see a sharp reduction in the price of Cerezyme and the medicine covered by the country's healthcare system.

A new measure adopted by the central government has given him some hope.

Starting next month, the value-added tax on 21 medicines and four active pharmaceutical ingredients for treating rare diseases will be cut from 16 percent to 3 percent to help reduce costs and ease financial difficulties for patients. Cerezyme is one of the drugs that will benefit from the VAT cut.

The decision was made at a State Council executive meeting, presided over by Premier Li Keqiang on Feb 11.

It injected confidence in the capital market, with the stocks of a number of pharmaceutical companies rising by the daily limit of 10 percent the next day.

"Many patients I know are happy to see the reduction because it sends a very positive signal to help us," Fang Yulin said. "Though medicine prices cannot drop overnight, the State Council has made us more optimistic."

China implemented a number of medical reforms last year, including the introduction of a zero-tariff policy on imported anti-cancer medicines in April, and a 1 percentage point reduction in the VAT rate for the pharmaceutical sector in May.

In another move, the National Health Commission said over the weekend that a national coordination network of 324 hospitals, led by the Peking Union Medical College Hospital, will be established as soon as possible to diagnose and treat rare diseases. Each provincial-level region should release its own detailed plan by the end of next month.

There are more than 7,000 rare diseases around the world, and in China about 20 million patients have such diseases, according to the Chinese Organization for Rare Disorders, an NGO based in Beijing.

Because only a small number of people have each disease, patients and their families often find that medicines are too expensive or extremely hard to buy, said Jia Qianqian, a coordinator with the NGO. The medicines used to treat some rare diseases can cost up to 4.88 million yuan a year.

A statement released after the State Council meeting said prevention and control of major diseases, including cancers and rare diseases, concerns the welfare of millions of people.

Reduction in VAT is expected to help drug producers lower their costs and possibly lower medicine prices for patients, said He Daixin, an economic researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

More tax reductions are expected to be released for other medicines and medical equipment to ease the financial burden on patients and their families, He said.

Most medicines for rare diseases are developed by overseas companies, Shi Lichen, founder of Beijing Dingchen Consultation, told the National Business Daily newspaper. Great risks, stemming from the limited number of patients and the difficulty in developing medicines, made pharmaceutical companies reluctant to invest in their research, development and production, he said.

Shi said pharmaceutical companies did not take the initiative to drop prices after the introduction of the zero-tariff policy on anti-cancer medicines, but some provinces negotiated with producers to lower prices.

The government should implement follow-up policies to further lower medicine prices, he said.

Top
BACK TO THE TOP
English
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
CLOSE
 
主站蜘蛛池模板: 久久成人a毛片免费观看网站 | 成人观看的视频三级 | 欧美怡红院免费的视频 | 中文国产成人精品久久无广告 | 激情性爽三级成人 | 久久观看午夜精品 | 欧美特级午夜一区二区三区 | 国产精品久久久久久免费 | 久草久热| 91久久香蕉国产线看 | 三级亚洲| 国产精品亚洲一区二区三区久久 | 日韩加勒比 | 亚洲国产一区二区三区四区五区 | 特级欧美午夜aa毛片 | 色精品一区二区三区 | 操哭美女 | 精品在线视频免费观看 | 久久受www免费人成看片 | 国产成人精品午夜在线播放 | 一区二区中文字幕在线观看 | 模特三级在线观看 | 国产精品久久精品 | 一级毛片国产 | 中国一级毛片aaa片 中国一级毛片录像 | 亚洲国产高清在线精品一区 | 成人中文字幕一区二区三区 | 不卡精品国产_亚洲人成在线 | 91色综合综合热五月激情 | 国产欧美精品午夜在线播放 | 情侣偷偷看的羞羞视频网站 | 亚洲影院手机版777点击进入影院 | 欧美日韩精品国产一区在线 | 国产精品久久久久久福利 | 特黄特色三级在线播放 | 国产精品拍拍拍福利在线观看 | 成人精品一区二区三区中文字幕 | 国产亚洲三级 | 精品国产一区二区三区www | 成人丝袜激情一区二区 | 欧美一级在线播放 |