The National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) is to expand National Health Insurance (NHI) coverage to include two types of targeted cancer drugs for the treatment of five types of cancers, starting on June 1, the administration announced yesterday.
After meetings on March 29 and April 17, the Pharmaceutical Benefit and Reimbursement Scheme Joint Committee agreed to expand the use of two types of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors — olaparib and niraparib, which are targeted drugs — to be covered by the NHI payment, the NHIA said.
NHI-coverage would include the PARP inhibitors for expanded conditions of “maintenance therapy of advanced high-grade epithelial ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer and primary peritoneal carcinoma,” and “postoperative adjuvant therapy for early-stage breast cancer,” and “first-line treatment for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer,” it said.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
NHI payment currently covers PARP inhibitors for advanced-stage epithelial ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer and primary peritoneal carcinoma with germline or somatic BRCA1/2 gene mutations. The expanded criteria would include those with homologous recombination deficiency positive, pathogenic BRCA gene mutation or genomic instability.
Among women, breast cancer is the most common cancer, while ovarian cancer and fallopian tube cancers are among the top 10 common cancers, according to 2022 cancer registry data, released in December last year by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Among men, prostate cancer is the third-most common cancer, the data showed.
Olaparib plus bevacizumab as maintenance therapy has been shown to have a clinically meaningful improvement in median overall survival by 17.9 months, while treatment with niraparib can extend progression-free survival by about 11.4 months, the administration said.
NHIA Medical Review and Pharmaceutical Benefits Division head Huang Yu-wen (黃育文) said the expanded criteria are expected to benefit about 775 people, and might cost up to NT$979 million (US$32.41 million) per year.
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