HUTCHMED Secures Continued NRDL Coverage for Three Cancer Drugs and Gains Commercial Insurance Access for Tazemetostat in China
Key Insights
HUTCHMED announced that three of its oncology drugs—ELUNATE (search), ORPATHYS (search), and SULANDA—will maintain coverage on China's National Reimbursement Drug List starting January 1, 2026.
TAZVERIK becomes the first drug included in China's newly established Commercial Insurance Drug List, expanding access for patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma (search).
The multi-layered reimbursement framework enhances patient access to innovative cancer treatments while supporting China's pharmaceutical innovation sector development.
HUTCHMED announced December 8, 2025, that following contract renewal with the China National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA), three of its oncology drugs will continue coverage under China's National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL) effective January 1, 2026. Additionally, the company's TAZVERIK will be included in the inaugural National Commercial Health Insurance Innovative Drug List.
Continued NRDL Coverage for Key Oncology Portfolio
ELUNATE (search) (fruquintinib) maintains its inclusion for treating patients with advanced endometrial cancer (search) with Mismatch Repair proficient (pMMR) tumors that have failed prior systemic therapy and are not candidates for curative surgery or radiation, administered in combination with TYVYT (sintilimab injection). The drug also retains coverage for metastatic colorectal cancer (search) patients who have previously received fluoropyrimidine, oxaliplatin and irinotecan-based chemotherapy, and those who have previously received or are not suitable for receiving anti-VEGF therapy or anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR (search)) therapy in RAS wild-type cases.
ORPATHYS (search) (savolitinib) continues its coverage for treating adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (search) with MET exon 14 skipping alteration. The drug is an oral, potent and highly selective MET tyrosine kinase inhibitor that blocks atypical activation of the MET receptor tyrosine kinase pathway occurring due to mutations, gene amplification or protein overexpression.
SULANDA (surufatinib) maintains its inclusion for treating patients with unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic, progressive non-functional, well-differentiated (G1 or G2) pancreatic and non-pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (search). The novel oral angio-immuno kinase inhibitor selectively inhibits tyrosine kinase activity associated with VEGFRs and fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR (search)), while also targeting colony stimulating factor-1 receptor (CSF-1R (search)) to regulate tumor-associated macrophages.
Commercial Insurance Breakthrough
TAZVERIK (tazemetostat) achieved inclusion in the Commercial Insurance Drug List for treating adult patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma (search) with EZH2 (search) mutation who have received at least two prior systemic therapies. The first-in-class methyltransferase inhibitor of EZH2 was developed by Epizyme, an Ipsen company, with HUTCHMED holding commercialization rights in Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Expanding China's Multi-Level Insurance Framework
The NHSA issued the 2025 Adjustment Work Plan for the NRDL and Commercial Health Insurance Innovative Drug List in July 2025, establishing the new Commercial Insurance Drug List as a key component of China's multi-level medical insurance system. This list focuses on medicines with high innovation and significant clinical value that fall beyond basic medical insurance scope, including certain high-cost oncology drugs, gene therapies, and rare disease therapies.
The framework enables reimbursement through commercial health insurance products such as high-limit medical insurance, inclusive health plans ("Huiminbao") and group health insurance. As of end of 2024, 1.33 billion people in China had basic medical insurance coverage, representing around 95% of the entire population.
Drug Development Partnerships
Fruquintinib is co-developed and co-commercialized in China by HUTCHMED and Eli Lilly and Company, while Takeda (search) holds exclusive worldwide licensing rights outside mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. Savolitinib represents a joint development between AstraZeneca and HUTCHMED, with AstraZeneca handling commercialization. HUTCHMED retains all worldwide rights to surufatinib.
The NRDL undergoes annual updates, with inclusion subject to renewal every two years. The NHSA annually convenes experts in medicine, pharmacology, pharmacoeconomics and actuarial valuation to identify innovative medicines for NRDL consideration. Reimbursement of Category B medicines, including novel oncology medicines, requires varying degrees of copayment from patients depending on their provinces or types of NHSA insurance scheme enrollment.