"Public relations accounts for 50% of drug price" national development and Reform Commission requires social supervision

Source: on July 23, 2013, the senior management of GSK promised to adjust the operation mode and reduce the operation cost in the drug price after being interviewed by the Ministry of public security of China, so as to reduce the drug price At this time, foreign pharmaceutical companies were cautious in evaluating GSK's "price reduction" move AstraZeneca, Astaire, Roche and other foreign pharmaceutical companies said in an interview with the morning post yesterday that they had no information to disclose about the price issue Following a July 14 Xinhua News Agency note that bribes account for nearly 30% of the price of GSK drugs, yesterday, Xinhua again said that according to the survey conducted in Fujian, "public relations fees" accounted for 50% of the drug price In addition, according to the information released on the website of the national development and Reform Commission yesterday, recently, the price department of the national development and Reform Commission and the person in charge of some medical price information websites held a discussion on how to exert social forces to supervise drug prices The head of the State price department said that since 2000, the national development and Reform Commission has made three rounds of comprehensive adjustments to the maximum retail price of drugs within the government's pricing range, and achieved positive results However, the maximum retail price limit is mainly "limit the price and prevent inflation", and there is no effective supervision on the price behavior in the circulation link There is no doubt that the drug price, especially the drug price of foreign products, has become a sensitive topic The reason for the high drug price of foreign enterprises is the influence of bribery on the drug price of GSK Liang Hong, vice president of GSK China, who has been taken away by the police, has his own judgment Liang Hong said in an interview with CCTV that the operating cost of commercial bribery accounts for about 20% - 30% of the composition of drug price Liang Hong takes the ex factory price of 140 yuan of hepudine as an example to introduce that conference expenses account for about 20%, profit margin accounts for about 20%, and the actual cost of drugs without considering research and development expenses is less than 84 yuan But even if the part of bribery is deducted, the drug price of foreign drug companies is not low Yesterday, a senior employee of an American pharmaceutical company told the morning post that in fact, part of the reason for the high drug price of foreign companies is due to the huge R & D cost, which is time-consuming and laborious Previously, we used to describe the R & D of a new drug as "one billion dollars in one decade", but now 10 Billion dollars is not enough, and the price of new drugs may also share the R & D cost of some unsuccessful drugs For example, many drugs have reached the clinical stage but failed, in which a huge investment has been made "After deducting production costs and other expenses, the profits may not be as high as the outside world imagined." The employee said In addition, profits may be further eroded At the same time, the above-mentioned employees said that domestic pharmaceutical enterprises generally make generic drugs, and the investment in R & D is much smaller In the past, foreign drugs will be "strongly imitated" within the patent protection period, which will inevitably impact the profitability of foreign enterprises Yesterday, caixin.com quoted a former GSK executive's introduction of drug pricing for foreign companies, saying that the original research drugs of general foreign companies fall into the scope of "enterprise independent pricing" and "independent pricing", with two pricing modes The first is first-in-class (the first drug of the same kind to be approved on the market) Its pricing calculation is: take the ex factory price or CIF price of the product as the base, take the sales price of the surrounding countries as the horizontal reference, and compare the operating cost of the enterprise statement The second is me too / me better The pricing is based on the price of first-in-class products, but it cannot exceed that of first-in-class products Caixin.com reported that these products were non-medical insurance products at the time of listing, that is, they were not included in the government's pricing range and were priced independently by enterprises Except for some regions, enterprises were not required to file with the price department When the product needs to enter the scope of medical insurance, the NDRC will adjust the price according to the factors such as the payment ability of medical insurance, the number of similar products, whether the protection period has expired, etc., generally reducing the enterprise's independent pricing by about 15% Reform the original drug research policy? In fact, the problem of drug price of foreign pharmaceutical enterprises is criticized because of the existence of the original drug research policy The original research drug is a unique concept in China According to the current definition of the national development and Reform Commission, patented drugs with expired compound patents (including the end of the administrative protection period) and similar drugs (drugs that failed to apply for Chinese patent protection but were first marketed in China) constitute "original research and development" drugs Drugs that have passed the patent protection period are still treated as "original drugs" and enjoy different treatment from generic drugs In foreign countries, once a certain drug has passed the patent protection period, a large number of generic drugs will be listed, and the price range of this drug will be greatly reduced Take Pfizer "Lipitor" as an example, when its patent expired in the United States in November 2011, the price will be greatly reduced, and Pfizer's profit level will be greatly damaged However, due to the existence of the original drug research policy, foreign pharmaceutical companies will not face the situation of a substantial reduction in product prices in the Chinese market In fact, in recent years, at the Symposium of representatives of pharmaceutical enterprises held during the two sessions, they all complained about the original drug research policy Recently, a staff member of a pharmaceutical company in Shandong Province communicated with the reporter of the morning post that the foreign-funded original research drug has earned excess profits during the patent period The original research drug policy makes its high pricing, which is actually increasing the burden of patients or medical insurance in disguise However, he also said that if the price difference between the original research drug and the generic drug is not big, the sales prospect of the generic drug will also be in doubt, so the price is high in one combination Rational degree is a better choice The price department of the national development and Reform Commission has issued a briefing to change the high price of the original research drug Zhu Dezheng, deputy director of the medicine department of the price department of the national development and Reform Commission, said in a public occasion on the 17th that the pricing method of drugs should be reformed, in which imported patent drugs and original research drugs were mentioned The ideas put forward by Zhu Dezheng include: for some drugs (imported patent drugs), reference can be made to the international market, especially the market price equivalent to the level of China's economic development; reform the separate pricing policy to gradually narrow the price gap between the original research drugs and generic drugs; the price of the newly listed original research drugs and generic drugs is generally connected, etc However, Zhu Dezheng pointed out that the premise to realize these ideas is that domestic generic drugs can do a good job in the consistency evaluation of generic drugs, and the quality level is guaranteed "Price reduction of foreign drugs is the trend of the times." it should be noted that foreign drug companies have a precedent of active price reduction In the 2009 version of the basic drug catalog, simvastatin (blood lipid lowering drugs) was selected MSD reduced the price of the original product "Shujiangzhi" corresponding to the generic name by more than 50% compared with the maximum price limit set by the national development and Reform Commission , participated in bidding and won the bid in many provinces However, MSD did not disclose the sales of the drug in China since then, and the specific revenue situation is unknown "Now it seems that foreign drug price reduction is the general trend, and foreign enterprises should make corresponding plans." Said the senior staff of American pharmaceutical companies In early July, the national development and Reform Commission published a list of cost price surveys, including a total of 60 pharmaceutical companies, including many foreign companies, including GSK Insiders of a pharmaceutical giant told the morning post that this kind of investigation has been conducted for many times for different enterprises and can be regarded as a routine inspection The investigation contents of foreign pharmaceutical enterprises include the investigation of their domestic production bases and the verification of declaration documents of imported drugs However, the senior staff of the above-mentioned US pharmaceutical companies also said that these investigations belong to the process of mastering the drug price system by the national development and Reform Commission and are likely to adjust the price accordingly     At the symposium between the price department of the national development and Reform Commission and some drug price websites, the head of the price department of the national development and Reform Commission asked the price departments at all levels to attach great importance to the drug price problems reflected by websites, media and other channels, and to closely follow up, conduct special investigation and seriously investigate and deal with the differences between the ex factory price and the bid winning price, the retail price exceeding the maximum price limit prescribed by the state, etc And reduce the false high price in time.