Right to set minimum bid prices for essential medicines to be decentralized

The central government will no longer explicitly set essential medicine price standards due to the fact that medicine prices in different regions vary and the right to set minimum bid prices for the localities purchasing essential medicines will be decentralized, Zheng Hong, director of the department of the medicine policy and essential medicine system under the Ministry of Health (MOH), disclosed on October 16.

Recently, after the maximum retail reference prices for essential medicines were released, a number of experts and businessmen in the pharmaceutical industry worried that if minimum bid prices were not set, a vicious "race to the bottom" in terms of price would happen in the ensuing local bidding and purchasing process. Zheng noted that the central government will not explicitly set the minimum bidding prices for essential medicines in relevant documents to be issued and will only establish an assessment system, aiming to emphasize the importance of production and service quality and credit rather than solely depending on the bid prices when evaluating the bidding pharmaceutical companies. The central government encourages local governments to set minimum bid prices while inviting bids during the purchasing process. Local governments will decide minimum bid prices and specific measures to implement them.

Zheng added that documents related to essential medicines, which are scheduled to be published at the end of October, include regulations on purchasing and distributing essential medicines, as well as regulations on the utilization of essential medicines. The regulations on the utilization of essential medicines are now at the stage of seeking opinions from provinces and cities. The centralized part of China's national essential medicine list is now being formulated and will be published together with the pilot reform program of publicly-owned hospitals in November.

By People's Daily Online