More than 400 cancer patients are set to benefit from Hong Kong health authorities’ decision to subsidise a leukaemia drug, and will go from paying up to HK$500,000 (US$63,800) a year for treatment to forking out just HK$240.
The Hospital Authority said on Wednesday that it began subsidising the medication, Dasatinib, in April, with the government expected to set aside an additional HK$49 million in annual spending to help cover the cost.
As part of the move, Dasatinib was reclassified from a “self-financed item” to a “special drug” in the authority’s medication database.
This means patients can buy it at a subsidised cost, regardless of their financial status, as long as they meet the relevant clinical criteria.
The authority also announced that more Hong Kong residents could now qualify for a drug subsidy fund, following a relaxation of its means-tested criteria based on patients’ salaries and assets.
Discussing the reclassification of Dasatinib, William Chui Chun-ming, the authority’s chief pharmacist, said the decision was due to the medication being positioned as a second-line treatment for leukaemia under international guidelines.
Leukaemia is listed as one of the top 10 killer cancers in Hong Kong.
Chui said that subsidising the drug would help more than 400 leukaemia patients save hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong dollars annually.
“There is lots of evidence to show that the clinical efficacy and also the safety data support using Dasatinib,” Chui said.
He added that Dasatinib was used as an alternative for patients who had developed a resistance to Imatinib, a first-generation drug.
Chiu said that while both were oral medications, Dasatinib had greater efficacy and took effect more quickly. It also required just one dose a day, whereas the first-generation counterpart required one to two doses a day, he added.
Under the new policy, patients will only have to pay HK$20 every four weeks for Dasatinib, or HK$240 per year. The cost was previously HK$20,000 to HK$40,000 every four weeks and up to HK$500,000 a year.
Since January, the authority has added 11 new drugs to its database, also known as the “Drug Formulary”, including four targeted cancer therapy medications.
The authority also announced that more patients would qualify for the Samaritan Fund, which seeks to help cover the cost of medical treatments for patients facing financial pressure.
Priscilla Poon Yee-hung, the authority’s chief manager of allied health, said the relaxation of the fund’s means-tested criteria aimed to increase subsidies for patients, especially working individuals.
“We aim to increase the number of beneficiaries who can be included in our safety net,” she said. “Our guiding principle ensures no patient is deprived of proper care simply because they cannot afford it.”
Under the revised criteria, a kidney disease patient in a three-person household with a total monthly income of HK$59,900 and disposable assets worth HK$303,000 will only need to pay 5 per cent of their medical costs with the approval of their fund application, down from the previous figure of 20 per cent.
Poon said about 2,200 applications for drug subsidies and around 1,050 for non-drug items under the fund were approved between January and March for individuals not receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance.
She noted the figures represented a 15 per cent year-on-year increase for both types of applications.
The public healthcare system’s fee system earlier underwent reforms to increase its sustainability and ensure better support for low-income patients with acute, serious and critical conditions.
Following the revamp, patients visiting accident and emergency departments who are listed as being critical or emergency cases – the top two categories for the authority’s five-level triage system – are treated for free instead of paying the previous HK$180 fee.
Meanwhile, patients considered less urgent or lower on the five-level scale are charged HK$400, more than double the past rate.