Newcastle University Reports Findings in Health and Medicine (Patient Access to Orphan Drugs Covered by Medical Insurance in China: Real-World Evidence From Patient Survey): Health and Medicine

2023 MAR 17 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Health and Medicine is the subject of a report. According to news reporting originating from Callaghan, Australia, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “After the inclusion of more high-cost orphan drugs in China’s National Reimbursement Drugs List, this study investigated issues relating to patient access to the 7 medicines for 4 rare diseases after listing. This study collected data from a national survey conducted in China.”

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Newcastle University, “Three aspects associated with the accessibility of medicines, namely, approachability, availability, and affordability, were analyzed using descriptive statistics. In addition, multilevel logistic regression models were used to investigate the associations between patient characteristics and the accessibility of surveyed orphan drugs. Of the 999 completed responses included in the study, 15% of the patients (n = 150) did not use the medicines because of non-medicine-related issues. Among the 849 patients using the surveyed medications, 64.4% (n = 547) encountered the problem of unavailability, whereas 51.2% (n = 435) reported affordability as an issue, and 49.6% (n = 320) had health expenditure beyond the catastrophic threshold. The data also indicated that Commercial Medical Insurance helped patients to relieve the cost burden on orphan drugs, but the payout of Commercial Medical Insurance failed to influence patients’ decisions to continue the treatments. Accessibility of orphan drugs has improved in China after their inclusion in the National Reimbursement Drugs List. Nevertheless, the availability and affordability of medicines remained the barriers for patients to access the desired treatments.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “It is recommended that further policy refinement in conjunction with the collaboration among healthcare stakeholders is required to deliver better care for patients with rare disease.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Patient Access to Orphan Drugs Covered by Medical Insurance in China: Real-World Evidence From Patient Survey. Value in Health Regional Issues, 2022;34:71-77.

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Shu-Chuen Li, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, Newcastle University, Callaghan, NSW, Australia. Additional authors for this research include Xiang Wang, Xiaomeng Yue, Yuxiang Li, Ning Shi, Fei-Li Zhao and Jiuhong Wu.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vhri.2022.10.008. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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