Pharmaceutical reforms: implications through comparisons of Korea and Japan

This paper compares the process and results of the reform which confined doctors to prescribing and pharmacists to dispensing in both Korea and Japan from comparative and politico-economic perspectives. At the present time, several years since the reforms were implemented, a 'compulsory separation' is being established in Korea. The claims containing antibiotics against the total claims from the doctor's clinic dropped from 55.7% in 2000 to 29.6%, and the number of drugs per claim from 5.9 in 2000 to 4.2 in 2008. Japan selected an 'arbitrary separation'. Efforts to raise the rate of the 'separation' have increased the rate from 1% in 1974 to 57.2% in 2007, but nearly half of medical prescriptions are still being dispensed by doctors. Disparity in the two countries has been brought about by what follows: first, the president's political leadership caused a radical shift in the attitude of the bureaucratic group in Korea; second, in their confrontation with doctors the pharmacists' camp in Korea proved to hold political power stronger than that in Japan; third, intervention in policy of progressive civic groups in particular played a pivotal role in accomplishing the reform in Korea.