Japan’s Opposition Parties Submit Hepatitis Treatment Aid Bill
This article was originally published in PharmAsia News
Executive Summary
In a push for more hepatitis patients to seek treatment, four opposition parties in Japan - Japan Democratic Party, Communist Party, Social Democratic Party and People's New Party - jointly submitted a Hepatitis Medical Treatment Aid bill to the House of Representatives. Compared to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's proposal, which only subsidizes interferon treatment, the new bill allows subsidization of both interferon treatments and combination treatments with antiviral drugs. It also lowers individual's monthly payment to zero, ¥10,000, or ¥20,000 based on individual income levels, compared to LDP's proposed payments of ¥10,000, ¥30,000 or ¥50,000 monthly payments. The average interferon treatment costs ¥80,000 per month. (Click here for more - Japanese language