China adds 33 drugs to its plan to offer patients more affordable treatment
- Latest bid document adds generic drugs to procurement programme, including treatments for cancer and diabetes
- Beijing is aiming to address high cost of treatment and unequal access to services
The National Health Security Administration outlined 33 generic drugs for tender in a bid document released on Sunday. They included treatments for cancer, diabetes and other diseases.
Beijing is ramping up its health care reforms to address issues such as the high cost of treatment and unequal access to medical services. High drug prices have been a long-standing problem.
Since health care agencies were streamlined into the National Health Security Administration (NHSA) in 2018, there has been significant progress in making drugs more affordable for patients.
The administration launched a bulk procurement pilot of 25 generic drugs in 2018 for 11 cities. As a result, pricing has been cut by half on average and savings of about 5.8 billion yuan (US$830 million) have been achieved in drug costs, Xiong Xianjun, a senior official of the administration, said early this year.
Since April, the programme had been expanded to 25 provinces and brought reductions in bulk pricing by 59 per cent on average, according to the administration.