Anti cancer drugs with zero tariff for more than 100 days: multiple departments strive to reduce the price of domestic drugs, innovate and copy together

Since May 1 this year, China has implemented "zero tariff" for anti-cancer drugs and other drugs for more than 100 days Over the past three months, we have worked together in many areas, departments and measures to promote people's access to and use of "life-saving drugs" through medical insurance access negotiations, provincial-level anti-cancer drug special centralized procurement, accelerating the approval process of overseas new drugs, including medical insurance and other measures For a period of time, the topic of anticancer drugs has become the focus of public attention Three months after the implementation of the anti-cancer drug zero tariff policy, the National Health Commission, the National Health Insurance Bureau, the National Drug Administration and other relevant departments made a intensive voice, introduced relevant policies and measures, and solved the demands of patients who could not afford, drag down or buy "life-saving drugs" In terms of ensuring the supply of anti-cancer drugs, the national health and Health Commission recently said that it would promote classified procurement of drugs in public hospitals For example, for some patented drugs and exclusively produced drugs, an open, transparent and multi-party price negotiation mechanism should be established; for drugs that are clinically necessary, small in dosage and short in market supply, they should be produced and purchased by the state through fixed-point bidding and price negotiation How to reach the patients' hands as soon as possible? This is also a challenge for the relevant departments In response, Jiao Hong, director of the State Food and drug administration, recently introduced that experts would be organized to study and classify 201 new drugs under review and approval and 138 new drugs that have not yet been declared in China, a total of 339 new drugs, and to select drugs for rare diseases treatment, prevention and treatment of serious life-threatening diseases such as anti AIDS drugs, anti-cancer drugs and other drugs The SFDA will concentrate its review efforts to speed up the review The review of drugs with rare diseases will be completed within three months The review of other clinically urgent drugs will be completed within six months It is expected to shorten the listing cycle by one to two years The inclusion of anti-cancer drugs in medical insurance is also an important measure to ensure that the public can afford drugs According to media reports, because some anti-cancer "life-saving drugs" do not enter the medical insurance, and even some patients "see whether they are included in the medical insurance first, then see the curative effect" phenomenon In response, the state health insurance bureau recently disclosed that for the exclusive anti-cancer drugs out of the medical insurance catalog, the state health insurance bureau has launched the special negotiation on access in 2018, which will include the new drugs and good drugs with clear curative effect and clinical necessity into the scope of the medical insurance catalog in a timely manner at a reasonable price through negotiation The willingness to negotiate is currently being confirmed with the enterprise According to the state health insurance bureau, the drugs proposed by the experts for negotiation are all necessary for the treatment of blood tumors and solid tumors, covering non-small cell lung cancer, colorectal cancer, renal cell cancer, melanoma, chronic myeloid leukemia, lymphoid cancer, multiple myeloma and other cancer types The negotiations are expected to be completed by the end of September Zero tariff for a hundred days, has the drug price been reduced? Since May 1 this year, China has reduced the import tariff of all general drugs, including anti-cancer drugs, alkaloids with anti-cancer effect and Chinese patent medicines with actual import to zero by way of provisional tax rate Reporters found that recently, Hubei, Beijing, Liaoning, Gansu and other provinces have made price cuts on anti-cancer drugs, and policy dividends have begun to gradually land, benefiting many patients For example, on June 29, Hubei public hospital drug (consumables) supply assurance platform issued a notice saying that, in response to the national tax reform policy, according to the application of enterprises, the price of Pfizer's 15 varieties and 20 drug specifications on the Internet was lowered by 3.4% - 10.2% For another example, on July 15, the centralized purchase network of drugs and medical consumables of Liaoning Province also issued a notice saying that Xi'an YANGSEN was agreed to reduce the price of Dake, an anti leukemic drug of its own, from 10327.22 yuan to 4996 yuan According to the reporter's calculation, the drop is more than 51% Chang Feng, deputy director of the medical security policy research center of China Pharmaceutical University, said in an interview with the media that the zero tariff policy for imported anticancer drugs has been implemented for three months, and the price of related drugs has declined by 3.30% - 51.62%, and the average price reduction of anticancer drugs issued by each province has reached 7.51% However, previous media surveys have found that there is a certain "lag effect" in the market response to the new zero tariff regulations For example, in the oncology department of a top three hospital in Liaoning Province, from May 1 to the end of July, the price of the main imported anticancer drugs such as bevacizumab for clinical use has not decreased Why does the terminal drug price have a long "Reflection Arc"? Yan Jianzhou, a project researcher at the National Center for drug policy and Economic Research of the pharmaceutical industry of China Pharmaceutical University, analyzed in an interview with the media in July this year that the "slow half price" of terminal drug prices was affected by multiple factors For example, before May 1 this year, a certain amount of imported anti-cancer drugs had been stored in the domestic market These drugs were not affected by the tax reduction policy, and their prices were not affected It will be the same as before Moreover, it still needs a certain period to complete the sales of this part of drug inventory Domestic anti-cancer drugs: in addition to promoting the market access of overseas original anti-cancer drugs, the research and development of domestic drugs are also concerned Recently, the head of the national health and Health Commission said that China launched the implementation of the major science and technology special project of "major new drug creation" in 2008 By the end of 2017, more than 1700 projects have been approved, a large number of varieties including anti-cancer drugs have obtained new drug certificates, and 8 anti-tumor drugs have obtained new drug certificates of class 1 In addition, the new drug program also supports large varieties that are urgently needed in clinical practice More than 200 varieties that are urgently needed in clinical practice have been transformed, involving more than 80 kinds of national essential drugs, and the quality of drugs has been greatly improved While encouraging drug innovation, the State Food and Drug Administration continued to accelerate the quality and efficacy evaluation of generic drugs, and gradually improve the quality of drugs on the market At present, the State Food and drug administration has published 15 batches of 1071 specifications of reference preparations, and a total of 4 batches of 41 specifications of generic drugs have passed the consistency evaluation The State Food and Drug Administration will also work with relevant departments to coordinate and implement the medical insurance payment, priority procurement, priority selection and other issues related to these varieties In addition to promoting the development of new drugs, the national health and Health Commission recently introduced that it is striving to promote the clinical use of high-quality generic drugs According to the opinions on the reform and improvement of the supply guarantee and use policy of generic drugs issued by the general office of the State Council at the beginning of this year, the drug centralized purchasing agency shall prepare the purchase catalogue according to the generic name of the drugs, so as to promote the equal competition between generic drugs and original research drugs with the same quality and efficacy as the original research drugs The relevant person in charge of the national health and Health Commission also said that generic drugs with the same quality and efficacy as the original research drugs should be included in the catalogue of interchangeable drugs with the original research drugs, marked in the instructions and labels, and relevant information should be released to the society in time, so as to facilitate the selection and use of medical staff and patients In response, some experts said that to comprehensively improve the quality of generic drugs, the goal is to achieve the clinical substitution of domestic generic drugs for the original drugs It is of great significance to evaluate the consistency of quality and efficacy of generic drugs for improving the overall level of China's pharmaceutical industry, ensuring the safety and effectiveness of drugs, and promoting the upgrading and structural adjustment of the pharmaceutical industry.