China strives to lower cost of cancer drugs as disease rates soar

China strives to lower the cost of cancer drugs as disease rates soar China strives to lower the cost of cancer drugs as disease rates soarJoy PersaudJoy PersaudJuly 16, 2018. China is pushing domestic and overseas markets to lower the cost of cancer drugs to make them more accessible. The country’s cancer rates have soared in recent years, caused by people succumbing to the disease due to heavy smoking, pollution and living to an older age, raising concerns about the prevalence of the disease. Last year, the National Cancer Center reported that there were 4.29 million new cases of the disease every year and 2.81 million deaths. The five-year cancer survival rate was just 30% in 2015, less than half the US level, prompting the Chinese government to pledge to improve on this by 15 percentage points by 2030.