Exhibit 99.1
Press Release
HUTCHMED Announces Continued Inclusion of ORPATHYS® (savolitinib) in the National Reimbursement Drug List in China at Current Terms
Hong Kong, Shanghai & Florham Park, NJ — Thursday, November 28, 2024: HUTCHMED (China) Limited (“HUTCHMED”) (Nasdaq/AIM:HCM; HKEX:13) today announces that following the contract renewal with the China National Healthcare Security Administration (“NHSA”), the updated National Reimbursement Drug List (“NRDL”) effective on January 1, 2025 will continue to include ORPATHYS® (savolitinib) at the same terms as the current two-year agreement.
ORPATHYS® is an oral, potent, and highly selective MET tyrosine kinase inhibitor (“TKI”). It received conditional approval in China in June 2021 for the treatment of certain patients with non-small cell lung cancer (“NSCLC”) with MET exon 14 skipping alterations. More than a third of the world’s lung cancer patients are in China and, among those with NSCLC globally, approximately 2-3% have tumors with MET exon 14 skipping alterations.
ORPATHYS® was first included in the NRDL on March 1, 2023. The government in China has placed great importance on improving the affordability of drug treatments for the public. As of end of 2023, 1.33 billion people in China had basic medical insurance coverage, representing around 95% of the entire population. The NRDL is updated every year, and inclusion on the list is subject to renewal every two years. The NHSA annually convenes a broad network of experts in medicine, pharmacology, pharmacoeconomics and actuarial valuation to identify innovative medicines to consider for NRDL inclusion. 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.
About ORPATHYS®
ORPATHYS® (savolitinib) is an oral, potent, and highly selective MET TKI that has demonstrated clinical activity in advanced solid tumors. It blocks atypical activation of the MET receptor tyrosine kinase pathway that occurs because of mutations (such as exon 14 skipping alterations or other point mutations), gene amplification or protein overexpression.
ORPATHYS® is jointly developed by HUTCHMED and AstraZeneca and commercialized by AstraZeneca. It is approved in China for the treatment of patients with NSCLC with MET exon 14 skipping alterations who have progressed following prior systemic therapy or are unable to receive chemotherapy. It is the first selective MET inhibitor approved in China and the first in the NRDL. It is currently under clinical development for multiple tumor types, including lung, kidney, and gastric cancers, as a single treatment and in combination with other medicines.
About HUTCHMED
HUTCHMED (Nasdaq/AIM:HCM; HKEX:13) is an innovative, commercial-stage, biopharmaceutical company. It is committed to the discovery and global development and commercialization of targeted therapies and immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and immunological diseases. It has approximately 5,000 personnel across all its companies, at the center of which is a team of about 1,800 in oncology/immunology. Since inception it has focused on bringing cancer drug candidates from in-house discovery to patients around the world, with its first three medicines marketed in China, the first of which is also approved in the US, Europe and Japan. For more information, please visit www.hutch-med.com or follow us on LinkedIn.