China News Service, August 22. In response to the large increase in the price of individual drugs, Chen Jinfu, deputy director of the National Medical Security Administration, responded today that objective cost factors such as insufficient market regulation mechanisms, monopoly price increases of upstream APIs, increased labor costs, and improved product quality levels have led to large increases in individual drugs.

The picture shows people queuing up to get medicine. Photo by China News Service reporter Zhang Tianfu

On the 22nd, the State Council Information Office held a regular briefing to introduce measures to strengthen the supply guarantee and price stabilization of commonly used drugs, and answer reporters' questions.

Chen Jinfu said that ensuring the supply and price of drugs is related to the health and safety of the people and is a high concern of the society. In response to the problem of rising prices of commonly used drugs, the Medical Insurance Bureau, together with many departments, has taken a series of measures, including: improving the drug price supply monitoring and early warning mechanism; conducting special price and cost investigations on key varieties, conducting quality inspections of accounting information in the pharmaceutical industry; promoting quality consistency evaluation, and promoting national organizations The centralized bulk purchase and use of drugs are piloted, and anti-cancer drug negotiations are carried out; the medical insurance catalog is expanded, and the reform of medical insurance payment methods is promoted; price supervision and inspection in the pharmaceutical field and anti-monopoly law enforcement of raw materials are strengthened, glacial acetic acid and chlorpheniramine raw material monopoly cases are seriously investigated, and some raw material drugs are investigated for suspected monopoly.

Chen Jinfu said that through the above measures, drug prices have generally remained stable, especially for some drugs with important clinical value. Through volume procurement and medical insurance access negotiations, the prices have dropped significantly.

Regarding the large increase in individual drugs, Chen Jinfu said that there are several reasons for the increase in drug prices:

First, the market adjustment mechanism is not sufficient. Most of the drugs with increased prices have the characteristics of small market capacity and insufficient competition. They are often clinically necessary and lack substitutes, which is prone to the trend of "shortage forcing price increases".

The second is the monopoly price increase of upstream APIs. The production links of some drugs or APIs are highly concentrated, and the distribution channels of APIs are easily controlled, and illegal profit-making is achieved through monopoly and sales control.

Third, there are objective cost factors. For example, increased investment in labor costs, improved product quality levels, and increased investment in environmental protection have also resulted in an increase in reasonable costs, which will have a greater impact on drugs with historically low prices.

Chen Jinfu revealed that the Medical Insurance Bureau will work with relevant departments to stabilize drug prices and strive to ensure a stable supply and reasonable prices of clinical drugs.

First, actively respond to the current excessive rise in drug prices. Unreasonable price increases will be interviewed and companies will be urged to take the initiative to correct them. Take measures such as public exposure, suspension of online suspension, and punishment for breach of trust until punishment is implemented in accordance with laws and regulations.

The second is to establish and improve a long-term supervision mechanism, comprehensively using monitoring and early warning, cost investigation, correspondence and interviews, credit evaluation, information disclosure, network suspension, illegal penalties and other measures to guide enterprises to set reasonable prices and consciously regulate their behavior.

The third is to deepen reforms with a focus on root causes. This includes deepening the reform of the centralized drug procurement mechanism, accelerating the national organization of centralized drug procurement and use pilot projects, establishing credit evaluation and incentive and punishment measures for price and bidding procurement, and promoting the formation of a market order with fair, healthy and orderly competition.