Understanding the adoption of new drugs decided by several stakeholders in the South Korean market: a nonparametric event history analysis.

The duration between regulatory approval and reimbursement decision has decreased, and the main cause of the delay has changed. For instance, the proportion of reimbursement trial-reimbursement decision in the total duration was 62.9% (18.39 months out of 29.24 months) in the first period, while the proportion of regulatory approval-reimbursement trial in the total duration was 64.2% (8.6 months out of 13.40 months) in the second period. A series of policies to reinforce access to medicines after 2014 has been effective for the timely availability of new medicines, including both prompt reimbursement application decided by manufacturers and timely review process by the authorities.