Concerned groups yesterday called for a more reasonable prices for both patented and generic drugs.
"On average, pharmaceutical companies spend US$800 million developing an innovative drug before putting it on the market and they have only eight years to make a profit out of it [before generic versions are allowed]," said Hsieh Yen-yau (
Hsieh said the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission and the Ministry of Audit should cooperate on setting price guidelines for drugs.
He also suggested the government take into consideration the prices of medicines abroad.
Hsieh said that both generic and patented drugs were necessary given the difficulty of raising national health insurance fees.
He emphasized, however, that the Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis must ensure that the ingredients in drugs have come from reliable sources.
He said that generic drugs must follow national standards to avoid problems.
Meanwhile, he proposed that patients be given the right to choose their own drugs as long as they are willing to pay the price difference between a generic and a more expensive brand-name drug.
Hsieh made the statement at a press conference that was hosted by the Association of International Research-Based Pharmaceutical Manufacturers.
The association also released results of a study by Yeh Ching-yin (
The study involved a survey of 20 Taiwanese doctors who are leaders in medical associations, and reported that 85 percent said name-brand drugs were safer and more reliable.
Seventy percent said that they see treatment quality decline when they switch from prescribing name-brand drugs to generic ones.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching