AstraZeneca's Enhertu breast cancer drug added to China's state insurance list

AstraZeneca's AZN blockbuster breast cancer drug Enhertu will be added to China's state-run health insurance scheme from Jan. 1, according to an update from the National Healthcare Security Administration.

Inclusion in the national reimbursement list makes drugs more widely available to the public in a country with a population of 1.4 billion, but an increase in sales volume is often mitigated by lower prices.

Enhertu, co-developed with Japan's Daiichi Sankyo 4568 partly for breast cancer patients with HER-2 positive disease, is an antibody-drug conjugate designed to deliver toxic chemotherapy directly to tumors.

For females in China, breast cancer is the second most frequent cancer after lung cancer, according to 2022 estimates from the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

The HER2 protein contributes to the growth and spread of breast cancer. About one in five patients are considered HER2-positive, according to AstraZeneca.

The price of drugs newly added to China's reimbursement list - a figure negotiated with drugmakers - will drop by 63% on average, state news agency Xinhua reported, adding that 91 new drugs had been included.

The inclusion of Enhertu comes after AstraZeneca said earlier this month that its China president Leon Wang had been detained by Chinese authorities but it did not know why, weighing on the London-listed company's shares.

AstraZeneca has invested heavily in China, the world's No.2 pharmaceuticals market, with sales from the country contributing 13% of its overall revenue.

A spokesperson for Daiichi Sankyo told Reuters it had been announced that the drug would be added to the list for the first time. A spokesperson for AstraZeneca referred Reuters to a National Healthcare Security Administration government announcement.