In a course of the showdown prior the Lower House elections in Japan on September 11th, the major political parties published their "manifests". The flavor of the foreign word has been used to increase the importance of those policy documents, what essentially are just party’s pledge.
Jouhoublog
Drug approvals and pharmaceutical affairs in Japan
08/28/05
Such pledges - more or less vague, have been around for years, however recently they sharpened to include more numerical targets and to reflect real needs of Japan. Such as the growing cancer epidemic. In a quite telling move, the Democratic Party of Japan (Minshuto) announced its manifest from August 16 that if won, would allocate 50-fold more funds (in the range of half billion dollars) only for anti-cancer measures. Among the major problems of economy underperformance and pension reform, it is rare a specific healthcare point of concern to earn such attention. To certain degree this is a reflection of DPJ membership - the only party to point on having physicians in its ranks.
Yet, there is no word about the sensitive point of new drug approvals. Perhaps, the last time when pharmaceutical issues gained higher visibility was in June 1998 when the Subcommittee on State Pharmaceutical Policy, belonging to the Research Committee on Basic Medical Policies of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) published a policy report outlining the party’s vision on the government – pharmaceutical industry collaboration.
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