WILLIS Intracranial Stent Graft System, developed by MicroPort NeuroTech (Shanghai) Co, has been officially included in Shanghai’s Drug Reimbursement List. According to Shanghai’s Medical Insurance Policy, insured patients who use WILLIS only assume 20% of the expense and the remaining 80% is covered by the insurance, making the device more affordable for local patients with intracranial aneurysms.
“It is recognition of WILLIS’s high quality and fuels our motivation for further innovation,” says Bo Peng, chief marketing officer of Shanghai MicroPort Medical (Group) Co and MicroPort NeuroTech executive director. “In the future, MicroPort will continue to offer innovative products to surgeons and patients.”
WILLIS is the first stent graft system launched in China for the treatment of intracranial aneurysms. With nine patents, the device gained the registration certificate from China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) in 2013. According to MicroPort, WILLIS achieves complete occlusion of intracranial aneurysms through vascular reconstruction. Compared with the traditional method of stent-assisted coil embolisation treatment, the procedure of vascular reconstruction using WILLIS effectively shunts the blood flow and keeps it off of the aneurysm wall.
In 2014, WILLIS was awarded “Shanghai Innovative Product” by Shanghai Municipal Committee of Economy and Informatization, Shanghai Municipal Finance Bureau and Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration. Additionally, a research project based on the clinical application of WILLIS was granted the second-class award of Science and Technology Achievements of the Year 2014. The project was titled “Research and Clinical Application of Noninvasive Imaging and Minimally Invasive Treatment of Intracranial Aneurysm and its Related Vascular,” and was carried out mainly by Professor Minghua Li of Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital, and Zhiyong Xie, general manager of MicroPort NeuroTech.
Meanwhile, during a meeting on centralised procurement of disposable medical supplies in 2015, Jianwei Xuan, Professor of Florida State University, Advisory Professor of Public Health School of Fudan University, Research Fellow of the Research Center of National Drug Policy & Ecosystem, and President of Advisory Committee of Asia-Pacific Branch of International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research, released the results of the health economic evaluation of WILLIS. The study result showed, compared with coil embolisation treatment, WILLIS has higher clinical efficacy and lower overall cost.
