CHINA has launched its first Commercial Health Insurance Innovative Drug List, a move seen as a significant step toward building a multi-tiered medical insurance system. The new list includes five chimeric antigen receptor-T (CAR-T) cell therapies — treatments that reprogram a patient’s own immune cells to target and destroy cancer cells.

Only 19 drugs were selected from 121 that passed formal review, with 24 advancing to price negotiations, the National Healthcare Security Administration announced at the High-Quality Development Conference on Innovative Drugs in Guangzhou on Sunday. The catalog will take effect Jan. 1, 2026.

Cancer therapies dominate the list with 14 entries, while drugs for Alzheimer’s disease — addressing the needs of an aging population — and treatments for rare pediatric conditions such as Gaucher disease and neuroblastoma are also included.

Analysts noted that unlike the national medical insurance drug list, which prioritizes safe, proven treatments, the commercial catalog focuses on highly innovative therapies with significant clinical value that fall outside basic coverage.

The selected drugs reflect recent advances in pharmaceutical technology, including advanced targeted therapies such as CAR-T, T-cell engagers, and bispecific antibodies. The five CAR-T therapies — developed by Fosun Kite, JW Therapeutics, Gracell Biotechnologies, Legend Biotech, and CARsgen Therapeutics — account for over half of the eight CAR-T products approved in China. These therapies are mainly used to treat hematologic malignancies.

Except for Gracell Biotech's therapy, priced at 999,000 yuan (US$141,300) per infusion, the other four cost over 1 million yuan, with JW Therapeutics' product reaching 1.3 million yuan per infusion.

Lu Lulu, founder and CEO of Gracell Biotech, noted that the process from initial contact to final selection took nearly a year. She added that as commercial insurance coverage expands, improved payment capacity and accumulated clinical experience will create a virtuous cycle, enabling such therapies to reach lower-tier markets.

According to Zhang Wenjie, chairman of Fosun Kite, the commercial insurance negotiation mechanism represents a major milestone for improving access to innovative drugs in China. Following its inclusion, the company plans to deepen cooperation with health insurance institutions to integrate its drug into more local benefit insurance programs and explore potential linkages with basic medical insurance.

Xia Sujian, a researcher at Jinan University, stated that the inclusion of five CAR-T therapies in the commercial insurance list signals the government’s establishment of a sustainable and predictable market access pathway for high-value—and even ultra-high-priced—drugs. The list also provides an authoritative reference for commercial health insurers across the country.

(SD-Agencies)