On Sept. 30, the Health, Welfare and Environment Foundation and the Health and Welfare Environment legislative caucus held a ceremony marking the establishment of a committee to improve accessibility to new oncology drugs. The committee will be led by Legislator Wu Yu-ching and Dr. Chang Chih-ming of Mackay Memorial Hospital. Other legislator including Su Chiao-hui, Yu Tien, Hsu Chih-jung, Lin Ching-yi, Tsai Pi-ru and Wang Wan-yu also voiced their support of the initiative. Minister of Health and Welfare Minister Hsueh Jui-yuan attended the ceremony and received appeals of patients.

A spokesperson of Legislator Yu Tien’s office said that Legislator Yu, who has lost a loved one to cancer, played a vital role in convincing 53 of his peers to support legislation to establish a Cancer Drugs Fund to improve patient access, and is actively in discussions with President Tsai Ing-wen on allowing the fund to be launched in 2024 for the benefit for Taiwan’s 720,000 cancer patients.

Dr. Chang said that the committee will focus on three main issues, including gauging the scale of the Cancer Drugs Fund required to serve patients, possible funding sources and drafting amendments to the Cancer Control Act and related sub laws. Dr. Chang said that National Health Insurance’s health technology assessment remains a bottleneck to the inclusion of more drugs, and that if the Cancer Drugs Fund is established, higher priority can be given to the most inaccessible drugs. Meanwhile, funding sources should consider all aspects of society. From the perspective of fairness, excise taxes on tobacco, sweetened food products and alcohol, as well as air pollution tax have not been ruled out as possible funding sources for the fund.

[2022-10-3/My People News]