Following the decision to include 24 immunotherapies in 2025, which is set to increase total spending to NT$3.295 billion, Taiwan Young Patient Association Secretary General Eric Liu said that although there is still some headroom in the Cancer Drug Fund (CDF), the new drug spending under the National Health Insurance (NHI) global budget remains at NT$4 billion, which could limit the inclusion of drugs currently covered by the CDF into the regular NHI fee schedule.

In response, National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) Deputy Director General Parng I-ming said that the waving of copayments for cancer and rare disease treatments remain a key challenge for Taiwan’s NHI reimbursement system. He pointed out that in other countries, patients are responsible for at least between 20% to 30% of medical expenses, and as much as between 70% to 80% in some cases. For example, in Korea, while reimbursement is processed more quickly, patients are shouldering copayments as high as 40% of the treatment. In contrast, Taiwan rarely requires copayments for treatments covered by the NHI, which has led to financial strain and making reimbursement decisions more difficult. NHIA Deputy Director General Parng also highlighted the growing importance of biosimilars and urged legislators support for domestic manufacturers to bolster Taiwan’s capacity to develop biosimilar immunotherapies.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Cheng-hsu said that patient group surveys showed that more the 20% of cancer patients in Taiwan pay over NT$1 million out-of-pocket for medical treatments. He added that stakeholders across all walks of life have continue to call for better solutions to alleviate the financial strain of bearing high out-of-pocket cancer treatment costs, in hopes of fulfilling President William Lai’s CDF policy goals and achieving the goal of reducing cancer mortality by more than one-third by 2030.

[2025-6-17/United Daily News]