Page 59 - Glass Machinery Plants & Accessories no. 4-2021
P. 59
and medical devices, renamed
has declined and aged over the the PMD Act. Japanese authori-
Labour and Welfare (MHLW), the last few decades due to low birth ties now claim that certain drug
Japanese market for prescription and migration rates. approvals in the country are fast-
and non-prescription pharmaceuti- Indeed it’s mostly due to the er today than in both Europe and
cals was at USD 107 billion in 2020 aging population that phar- USA - a marked change from
- which, in yen terms, is down 0.7 macy dispensing costs current- the days when Japan was seen
percent from 2019. ly account for JPY 7.6 trillion as a difficult market for foreign
With a population of more in steadily increasing national companies. In 2014, the gov-
than 125 million -which makes it healthcare costs. Here, pharma- ernment also introduced puni-
the tenth most populous country ceutical market reform is list- tive pricing measures targeting
in the world- demographics too ed among the various govern- long-listed drugs that continue
are shaping the Japanese pharma ment attempts to reduce con- to maintain market share despite
industry. Life expectancy is now sumer health care costs. It has the availability of generics. Under
at 85 years, and the population seen reforms instituted over the what’s known as the “Z2” rule,
past several years which involve pricing for long-listed products is
new approaches to controlling reduced by up to 2 percent every
drug prices and encouraging the two years, in addition to cuts
development and use of gener- made under the R-Zone rule in
ic and biosimilar drugs. In the cases where generic replacement
realm of hematology treatment, rates for that brand fail to reach
where pharmaceuticals can be 60 percent following five years of
very expensive, this should be a the first generic listing.
positive development for patients
- even if some lament that price- THE PHARMACEUTICAL
control efforts could stifle the PACKAGING CONTAINER
innovation for which Japan is so GLASS INDUSTRY
well-known. Seven container glass pro-
Among the biggest changes ducers account for the bulk of
for pharmaceutical packaging current Japanese pharmaceuti-
in Japan was the 2014 revision cal glass output - four of which
of its keystone pharmaceutical are domestic while the remaining
legislation for pharmaceutical three are foreign.
GMP&A 4/2022 57
