Characteristics of indications, clinical trial evidence, clinical benefits and the costs of price-negotiated multi-indication drugs for solid tumours in China

作者：Pei Zhang, Mengdie Zhang, Rui Ma, Jingxuan Wei, Yuwen Bao, Lingli Zhang, Xiaodan Qian, Dan Su, Xin Li · 发表于：Journal of Global Health · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.7189/jogh.15.04121 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Economic and Financial Impacts of Cancer、Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life、Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy

Background: Cancer is a leading cause of death globally, with China accounting for a significant portion of new cases and deaths. The Government of China has introduced the National Drug Price Negotiation (NDPN) policy to mitigate the high costs of anticancer drugs, especially multi-indication drugs, aimed at improving patient access to effective treatments. Methods: In this retrospective study, we examined 24 multi-indication anticancer drugs for solid tumours included in the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL) between 2016 and 2023. We collected characteristics of indication, clinical trial evidence, and clinical benefits of these drugs, calculated monthly drug costs, and assessed the associations the two by regression and correlation analyses. Results: We observed a significant reduction in the median monthly drug cost from USD 3863.08 before NDPN to USD 732.91 after their inclusion in the NRDL. However, the correlation analyses showed no significant relationships between drug costs and characteristics of indications, clinical trial evidence, and clinical benefits, while American Society of Clinical Oncology Value Framework scores demonstrated a negative correlation with costs, indicating that pricing may not accurately reflect clinical benefits. Conclusions: While we found that the NDPN policy has significantly reduced drug costs, we did not observe a significant correlation between costs and specific characteristics. This highlights a need for a more transparent pric...