Inside the monopoly of drug raw materials: the boss spent 300 million 3 months to raise the drug price from 1.6 yuan to 8 yuan

A bottle of nitroglycerin tablet, a commonly used medicine for heart emergency treatment, has soared from more than 4 yuan to more than 60 yuan and is hard to buy; a box of chlordimefon for pesticide poisoning has soared from 48.8 yuan to 1017 yuan in the price of government bidding and Internet hanging; papaverine hydrochloride for finger replantation has soared from 9.4 yuan to 349.9 yuan The hospital is forced to buy high and sell low What happened behind such a large price rise and shortage? The reporter of the economic reference interviewed the pharmaceutical market, hospitals, pharmaceutical factories and pharmaceutical distribution enterprises He found that in the past two years, there have been more than 100 kinds of drugs in the market that have increased their prices several times or even dozens of times in a "rocket" way, mostly amoxicillin, antihypertensive No A number of industry insiders reported that the root cause of the abnormal rise of various drug prices is that some bad businessmen collude with monopoly of drug raw materials and then bid up drug prices for huge profits At present, the "monopoly for profits" in this drug market has been organized and normalized Crazy drug prices lead to: patients worry, hospitals worry, the government is helpless in Hefei City, Anhui Province, 67 year old Zeng big Ye 9 years ago, a sudden myocardial infarction, installed a heart stent Since then, nitroglycerin, the first-aid medicine for heart disease, has become the "life-saving medicine" he carries with him But recently, he found that the medicine could not be bought A dozen drugstores around his home said they were out of stock Like Mr Zeng, Hu Xuejin, an 82 year old retired researcher of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his wife also need the medicine Fortunately, he bought three bottles in the hospital, but he was surprised to find that the price of one bottle last year was still more than 4 yuan, but now it has risen to more than 60 yuan "My wife has had coronary heart disease and high blood pressure for more than 20 years In the second half of last year, I also had physical problems and twice fainted at home." At his home in the western suburb of Hefei, Mr Hu Xuejin put three kinds of Medicine on the table: Nitroglycerin Tablets, quick acting Kyushin Pills and compound Danshen dropping pills "These three kinds of medicine are our regular life-saving medicine." For many years, Hu Xuejin felt that the price of some drugs in the past two years had gone up dramatically As a well-known scholar and one of the pioneers in laser biomedical field in China, Hu Xuejin said that his country and province have reimbursement policies for drug purchase, but he was worried that the rising price of drugs would increase the economic burden of the public: "many patients are discussing why the price of drugs has risen so much?" With doubt, the reporter visited Anhui Taihe Huayuan Pharmaceutical Market, the largest wholesale market of Western medicine in China, and learned that nitroglycerin is not the only one that has increased its price in recent two years "Nitroglycerin tablet, 4 yuan in the first half of last year, current price 55 yuan Calcium gluconate injection, 8 yuan in the first half of last year, current price 40 yuan Vitamin K1 injection, 25 yuan in the first half of last year, current price 160 yuan In the first half of last year, 1 ml of Cediland injection for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases was 30 yuan, and now the cheapest brand is 133 yuan.. " There are more than 30000 kinds of drugs traded in Huayuan market, and the customers involve more than 10000 basic medical institutions and more than 20000 drug retail enterprises The market here is regarded as the "barometer" of the national drug price In the market business hall, the invoicer Wang Qi told reporters that in the past year, there has been a sharp rise in the price of a variety of drugs As for the reason for the price increase, she said she was not clear, "I heard that the raw materials have increased." In order to fully understand the situation, the reporter interviewed several persons in charge of Huayuan company and learned that in recent years, there have been more than 100 kinds of drugs with abnormal price rise, many of which are commonly used and low-cost drugs familiar to the public For example, amoxicillin, antihypertensive No.0, metronidazole, virin, dysentery, roxithromycin, vitamin B1, oryzanol, inosine, dexamethasone, albendazole and so on, the increase is mostly 3-10 times, some of which are dozens or even hundreds of times "I have the impression that there has been an abnormal increase in drug prices since 2014, and that more and more drugs are going crazy in the past year or two." A warehouseman in Huayuan market said that nitroglycerin and vitamin series have been the main products rising this year The prices of nitroglycerin tablets (0.5mg * 100 tablets) and injection (10ml) have increased from about 4 yuan and 20 yuan last year to about 55 yuan and 110 yuan respectively Wang Derun, purchasing manager of Fujian new power pharmaceutical company, has been purchasing in Huayuan market for 16 years He said that in the national pharmaceutical market, there are the most commonly used medicines for the common people "In the past two years, there are an estimated 1200 kinds of drugs whose prices have risen abnormally The sharp rise of drug price affects the sales volume As a drug distribution enterprise, we are helpless, and patients can only passively accept the high price " The price of many kinds of drugs on the market has skyrocketed What's the situation of the hospital? Reporters came to Anhui Taihe County People's Hospital, the top three hospital, to learn that there are many kinds of drugs with amazing price increases, some of which are still in short supply "Since last year, the price of some drugs, especially first-aid drugs, has increased, such as vitamin K1 injection for hemostasis There is a large clinical demand, but at the beginning of this year, money can't buy it Nitroglycerin is the first choice for the treatment of angina pectoris, and it has been in short supply this year Calcium gluconate injection has been out of stock for some time Diao Bo, deputy director of the pharmacy department of the hospital, said that because of the sharp rise in drug prices, some drugs had the phenomenon of "the market purchase price is higher than the government sales price limit", but because of clinical use, hospitals can only buy at a loss and at a high price, and sell at a low price, which is common in county and municipal hospitals For example, the price of a box of chlordimefon, which is used to treat pesticide poisoning, has skyrocketed from 48.8 yuan to 1017 yuan Papaverine hydrochloride, used for replantation of severed fingers, soared from 9.4 yuan to 349.9 yuan These "life-saving drugs" are necessary for hospitals and can only be purchased at a high price The reporter learned that in recent years, there has been a shortage of some abnormal drugs, such as nitroglycerin in Jiangsu, Hubei, Liaoning and other provinces Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Shandong Province centralized drug purchase network once announced that nitroglycerin and other drugs in short supply can break through the government's bidding price "direct online" sales The formation of monopoly profiteering: Why are there so many kinds of abnormal price increases of drugs in an organized, normalized and patterned way? A number of industry insiders said that it was mainly caused by the illegal monopoly of drug raw materials by some bad businessmen for profiteering "A batch of pharmaceutical raw materials with definite curative effect and good quality and low price are controlled artificially, which leads to a large increase in the production cost of manufacturers without raw materials." The head of Anhui Huayuan Pharmaceutical company said that this is a common phenomenon in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry in the past two years, such as analgin, isoniazid, chlorpheniramine and other pharmaceutical raw materials Some prices have risen from 2000 yuan per kilogram to 50000 yuan Nowadays, it has become a common phenomenon that the price of commonly used drugs and low-cost drugs in the market increases "Patients, medical institutions and circulation enterprises are in a very difficult situation." A pharmaceutical company in East China is one of the victims of raw material monopoly The company, which has hundreds of employees, produces more than 50 kinds of commonly used drugs The head of the company said that in the past few years, the raw materials of dozens of drugs in the company have been artificially monopolized and difficult to buy It includes amoxicillin capsule, virin, quick acting cold capsule, oxytetracycline tablet, cimetidine tablet, metronide file tablet, etc Among them, the raw materials of virin (Moroxydine Hydrochloride Tablets) were still 20000 yuan per ton in 2015, and soared to 300000 yuan per ton in 2017 In order to not stop production and protect workers' wages, the company had to "trust relations" to buy at a high price The price of chlorpheniramine has gradually increased from 230 yuan per kilogram to 1980 yuan or even to 7000 yuan If you want to buy 50 kg, you have to sell 50 tons of paracetamol "For our pharmaceutical companies, they can either buy their raw materials at a high price, or they can be the" sales agent ", and they can determine the price and take away the big profits." The head of the pharmaceutical company said that the sharp rise in raw materials led to the sharp rise in products For example, the ex factory price of a bottle of viral spirit was only 4.85 yuan, and then it rose to 58 yuan High price also leads to unsalable products of pharmaceutical factories, so they have no choice but to transform into food and cosmetics "We dare not be angry If you express dissatisfaction with your public identity, you may not be able to buy any raw materials in the future " According to several insiders, some bad businessmen monopolize the supply and import channels of certain drugs by means of collusion, inducement and coercion, hoarding and selling at a high price to downstream pharmaceutical factories, or controlling the sales and pricing rights of pharmaceutical products, leading to drug price rise, shortage and profiteering In the past two years, almost all drugs with abnormal price rise have adopted this set of methods, which have been organized, normalized and modeled "For example, there are three original factories in the country for the raw materials of a certain drug Now one of them has been shut down for environmental protection, leaving only two There are so-called "general distributors" or "big bags" who buy all the raw materials produced by these two factories You used to sell for 80000 yuan a ton Now I'll give you 100000 yuan How much of your production should be reported to me, and the distribution right belongs to me After I monopolized the market, I sold 300000 yuan a ton, resulting in a sharp increase in the cost and product price of downstream pharmaceutical factories " Some people attribute the rise in drug prices to the fact that some local governments shut down raw material factories for environmental protection reasons In fact, monopoly price hikes are the main reason, a pharmaceutical industry official said And there are many ways to raise the price For example, some drugs were originally packed with 100 Capsules in a bottle, but now they are packaged with 20 or 10 capsules in a bottle It seems that the price hasn't changed, but in fact, the price has skyrocketed Monopoly for profit has become an "open secret" in the pharmaceutical industry A pharmaceutical industry official, who asked not to be named, said that a pharmaceutical industry boss he knew last year took out 300 million yuan to monopolize a kind of stomach medicine raw material, and raised the price of a bottle of medicine from 1.6 yuan to 8 yuan within three months It is said that he has made several times of profits Weak punishment: at the beginning of this year, Hunan Erkang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd and Henan Jiushi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd were confiscated and fined 12.43 million yuan by the State Administration of market supervision and Administration for monopolizing chlorpheniramine API It is understood that chlorpheniramine, as a raw material drug, is widely used in the production of more than 2000 cold and allergy drug preparations, including Biyan tablets, Weic Yinqiao Tablets and other commonly used drugs According to the investigation of the relevant departments of the State Administration of market supervision and administration, Hunan Erkang and Henan Jiushi once accounted for 96% of the market share of China's chlorpheniramine APIs They used their market dominance and control of import channels to "closely contact and cooperate with each other", sold and tied up pharmaceutical excipients to downstream pharmaceutical factories at unfair high prices, and repeatedly refused to supply them on the basis of "no goods", Or it may take the payment of high margin, the unified sale of the buyback of the patent medicine, the rise of the price of the patent medicine and the Commission as the supply conditions As a result, the supply of chlorpheniramine API is in short supply, the price is rising sharply, and some downstream manufacturers reduce production and stop production, which damages the interests of patients and has a bad social impact Several industry insiders said that in recent years, the relevant departments of the state have investigated and punished drug monopoly behavior more than once, but relatively huge profits, the punishment is often like "dragonfly skimming the water", and the price of API is often not reduced after the fine Due to insufficient efforts to crack down, more and more drugs are monopolized and the monopolist's craziness has not been restrained In this regard, they suggested that the relevant departments of the state "combine management with release" to take measures: check monopoly