The first shot of monopoly drug price reduction

Source: Although there is no sign of cypress blue 2014-09-28, it is believed that Jiangsu's action to reduce the price of monopoly drugs has been the result of a long period of deliberation There have been many times when people have high hopes for the drug cost price investigation implemented by the national development and Reform Commission and the possible "anti-monopoly" in the future, but the first shot in this battle is not from the national development and Reform Commission, but from Jiangsu Province On the morning of September 26, Jiangsu Price Bureau held a press conference to announce the adjustment (in fact, the price reduction) of 13 drugs, including olacetam injection, and the highest retail price of 27 specifications of chemicals According to the press release, the characteristics of these drugs are that many of them involve some high priced drugs with exclusive production, lack of competitiveness in the market and large clinical dosage For example, "compound coenzyme for injection" is the exclusive variety with daily treatment cost over 100 yuan Many are anti-tumor drugs, such as "paclitaxel liposome" is a single price of more than 1000 yuan, the price is relatively high According to media estimates, for example, "compound coenzyme for injection", after price reduction, the burden of medical expenses of the whole society can be reduced by more than 30 million yuan / year; "paclitaxel liposome" is an anti-tumor drug with a single price of more than 1000 yuan, and after price reduction, the burden of medical expenses can be reduced by more than 23 million yuan / year This price adjustment is the biggest price reduction of provincial drugs since 2006 This time, Jiangsu sword refers to the high price monopoly of drugs, with a sharp price cut of 25% on average and up to 40%, the biggest drop in the history of provincial drug prices since 2006 According to the press release, the price bureau of Jiangsu Province, based on different situations, highlighted the key points, strictly controlled the varieties of price increase, implemented classified price reduction, increased price reduction for auxiliary drugs with high daily treatment costs and reasonable price reduction for therapeutic drugs with high daily treatment costs, gradually narrowing the unreasonable price difference Who is responsible for the deployment and encouragement of the drugs involved in the price reduction? In the external publicity, it is defined as "a lot of drugs involving partial exclusive production and lack of competitiveness in the market", which means "monopoly drugs" Breaking the monopoly of drug price has been a hot topic in recent years Many people in the industry are generally dissatisfied with the high pricing of patented drugs and original research drugs, and have repeatedly called for the cancellation of their "super national treatment" Some organizations that provide "asylum" for foreign pharmaceutical enterprises, through various channels such as the issuance of reports, have launched the "same drug is different from the same quality" judgment to maintain the relatively high price system of patented drugs and original research drugs Although there is no obvious representative on both sides of the dispute, the dispute has lasted for a long time, even a little hot In this context, when the national development and Reform Commission launched the investigation of drug cost price as usual in October 2013, it was deeply interpreted by many media, which believed that it was the preparation for anti-monopoly of large pharmaceutical enterprises But up to now, there is no movement Maybe people have forgotten about it Until the beginning of September, the relevant people of the Ministry of Commerce confirmed that Zheng Wen, deputy director of the Anti Monopoly Bureau, led a team to Shanghai to investigate the anti-monopoly review of concentration of business operators, and further understand the market competition of semiconductor, medical devices and other related industries The anti-monopoly theory of medical devices has become more and more popular Just this time, it's not the national development and Reform Commission, but the Ministry of Commerce At this point, people can't help but wonder which sector is leading the anti-monopoly in the pharmaceutical industry? We know that the price adjustment in Jiangsu Province is carried out by the provincial Price Bureau, which belongs to the local development and Reform Commission system But the development and Reform Commission system is not a top-down vertical management system, but is subordinate to the local government It can be analyzed that if it is the inspiration of the top of the national development and Reform Commission, the price reduction in Jiangsu may be a "pilot", and the possibility of expanding to the provinces in the future is to a large extent there If it is the behavior of Jiangsu development and Reform Commission itself, from the point of view of holding a press conference itself, more attention may be focused on delivering a positive image of "doing something" to the people, which is less likely to spread to the provinces However, there is a great possibility to reduce the price of other monopoly drugs No matter who inspired us, we will give other provinces a thought: "Jiangsu Province is so developed, and people's consumption capacity is so strong, we are going to reduce prices, are we going to reduce it?" From this point of view, Jiangsu may be the first shot to launch the monopoly drug price reduction The future, left to the future, is verified In any case, from the perspective of social benefits, we should give full affirmation to Jiangsu Price Bureau In Chapter 15 of economics, Mankiw has studied the case of drug monopoly: when an enterprise develops a new drug, patent law enables the enterprise to monopolize the sale of that drug, and maximize the profit through the production of marginal income equal to the output of marginal cost, and charging a price much higher than the marginal cost Therefore, the national development and Reform Commission will launch the drug cost price investigation, hoping to analyze whether the drug price is reasonable from the cost accounting In February this year, the magazine under the Ministry of industry and information technology of the people's Republic of China wrote an article to analyze the harm of drug monopoly: the monopoly behavior of pharmaceutical enterprises will not only affect pharmaceutical enterprises and the whole pharmaceutical industry, but also seriously harm consumers themselves As the pharmaceutical industry is an important industry of national economy, the unhealthy development of the whole pharmaceutical industry will eventually affect the economic development of the whole country According to the article, due to the relative weakness of domestic pharmaceutical enterprises in R & D, capital and technology of some products, foreign pharmaceutical enterprises have a certain market dominant position in some products, while foreign pharmaceutical enterprises may abuse their market supporting position by taking advantage of their own technological advantages From the industrial level, once foreign pharmaceutical enterprises monopolize the domestic market, it will inevitably squeeze the living space of domestic pharmaceutical enterprises, and the source of capital, technology and talents of domestic pharmaceutical enterprises may be occupied by foreign enterprises, thus affecting the long-term development of domestic pharmaceutical enterprises. According to an industry source who asked not to be named, there are still some hospitals in China that use medicine to support their doctors and use medicine sales to generate income, which is one of the root causes of Chinese medicine monopoly In addition, the lack of supervision and the imperfection of the system lead to the monopoly of drug sales, abuse of market dominance, and the exclusion and restriction of competition No matter the monopoly of patent drugs or the dominant position of the market obtained by curve method, this kind of behavior which disorganizes the market ecology and goes against the commercial spirit has a fatal negative impact on the Chinese pharmaceutical industry.