2024 Volume 41 Issue 3 Pages 302-307
The development of medical research, such as molecular biology and genomic medicine, has advanced the elucidation of diseases and pathologies at the molecular level, and many drug target candidate molecules have been discovered. In the 1990s, biologics, in the 2010s, nucleic acid drugs, regenerative medicine products (gene therapy, cell therapy), and other new modalities emerged, and the development of molecular targeted drugs became mainstream. Such drug discovery innovation has been the driving force for the growth of the pharmaceutical industry. The evaluation of the added value of pharmaceuticals is based on the treatment outcomes such as efficacy, safety, and convenience. The evaluation based on the degree of improvement in the quality and quantity of life (survival period) of the patient, and the evaluation from the perspective of supporters and caregivers other than the patient are also important. The indicator of the economic value of pharmaceuticals in medical economics is the drug price, and it is important that the clinical value of pharmaceuticals is appropriately evaluated as the drug price.
The drug price calculation system for appropriately evaluating the innovation of new drugs has been revised many times, and it has supported the recovery of the cost involved in the development of innovative pharmaceuticals and the investment in the next innovative drug discovery at a high drug price as soon as possible, by rewarding the corporate efforts to create innovative pharmaceuticals. On the other hand, systems such as market expansion recalculation have been introduced to control the total amount of drug costs to make the medical insurance system sustainable, and they have had a greater impact on the drug prices of individual pharmaceuticals than ever before. For pharmaceutical companies, the appropriate drug price of new pharmaceuticals is an important business driver as a drug discovery incentive. In this paper, I discuss the drug price system from the perspective of how the breakthrough of pharmaceuticals is reflected in the drug price in the neurological field.
