'Pharma fee reforms sweeten pill for chronic patients'

The Hospital Authority's Chief Pharmacist, William Chui, says more patients can be brought into the public health system's safety net thanks to the government's hospital fee reform at the start of the year. In April, the leukaemia drug Dasatinib was reclassified from a self-financed item to a special drug, bringing the annual cost of the targeted therapy to just HK$240, down from up to half a million dollars. Speaking on a radio programme on Saturday, Chui said revenue from the increased fees is being channelled to different parts of the medical system to benefit more patients. "In the past, we provided 16 weeks of drug supply for HK$15, but now it costs HK$20 for a four weeks’ supply, which may look like a five-fold increase," he said. "But the money we charge is used to introduce new drugs and expedite the reclassification of medicine into special drugs, so that patients in need will not be denied appropriate treatment due to financial constraints." Eleven new drugs have been included in the authority's drug formulary since January, eight of them highly subsidised. Chui stressed the authority would review clinical data and the cost-effectiveness of various drugs to determine whether more medications should be reclassified as special drugs. He said the authority currently covers 95 percent of patients' medication costs and that he hopes it will be easier to introduce new drugs under the "affordable users pay" principle. Edited by Robert Kemp