China May Save $30 Billion With Generic-Drug Plan, Novartis Says
- Bulk-buying program cuts prices by as much as 90 percent
- Money can be put back into buying innovative new medicines
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China’s ambitious program to cut generic-drug prices may save as much as $30 billion, funds that could be used to pay for newer, innovative medicines, according to the head of pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG.
China has become “much more aggressive about genericizing older classes of medicines,” Novartis Chief Executive Officer Vas Narasimhan said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Basel, Switzerland.