Sayaka Ueno

Keywords idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis antifibrotic therapy Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status body mass index drug tolerability 1 Introduction Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive fibrosing interstitial lung disease with a poor prognosis. Although disease progression varies among patients, the median survival after diagnosis is 2–4 years [1,2]. Until the approval of antifibrotic agents, effective treatment was lacking.

All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. No special permission is required to reuse all or part of the article published by MDPI, including figures and tables. For articles published under an open access Creative Common CC BY license, any part of the article may be reused without permission provided that the original article is clearly cited. For more information, please refer to https://www.mdpi.com/openaccess.

By Hiroshi Nemoto, Taku Yamada and Sayaka Ueno Unlike other countries, Japan has no data exclusivity system. Instead, the major factors that prevent the entry of generics into the market are: the re-examination period provided in pharmaceutical regulations; and the terms of patents covering existing products. Price listing may also be relevant under the universal national insurance system.