Zero tariff of imported anticancer drugs will benefit people's livelihood

Source: Qi Doudou, reporter of Shanghai Securities News, Zhang Xue, held the executive meeting of the State Council on April 12, which officially decided to implement zero tariff on imported anti-cancer drugs and proposed to accelerate the import and listing of innovative drugs Industry insiders believe that the implementation of zero tariff for anti-cancer drugs will help to reduce the price of imported anti-cancer drugs, further reduce the cost of treatment for cancer patients and families, and resolve the pain of people's livelihood The acceleration of the import and listing of innovative drugs will also accelerate the launch of generic drugs or strengthen the research and development of independent innovative products for domestic pharmaceutical enterprises In the field of imported drugs, due to the influence of high tariff, multi-level agency, monopoly supply, etc., the problem of high drug price is particularly prominent Many imported drugs, especially anti-cancer drugs, are often much more expensive than foreign ones, which makes it hard for patients to bear When the anti-cancer drugs are imported after zero customs clearance, the import cost will be reduced simultaneously At present, the actual tariff rate of imported drugs is about 5% to 6% The market scale of anti-tumor drugs in China is about 140 billion yuan, of which the import accounts for about one third, about 40 billion yuan After zero customs clearance, the cost of cancer patients in China can be reduced by 2 billion yuan From the perspective of enterprises, some circulation pharmaceutical enterprises will benefit from the zero customs clearance of anti-cancer drugs import At present, some varieties of imported drugs are sold by the branches of import enterprises in China, while most of them are imported through domestic companies China's two vote policy clearly stipulates that the domestic general agent of overseas drugs (only one domestic general agent in China) can be regarded as the same manufacturer The commodity price is related to the cost and sales volume When the amount of imported drugs is increased, the enterprise's operating cost will be diluted, and the drug price will be further reduced to benefit more patients As the largest agent and distributor of imported drugs in China, especially after the successful acquisition of Kantor China, the total number of agent varieties of imported drugs of Shanghai Pharmaceutical leaped to the first place in the industry, and Shanghai Pharmaceutical may become the most beneficial company after the tariff adjustment In addition, Sinopharm holdings, China Resources pharmaceutical and other distribution leaders also have certain advantages of import pharmaceutical agents It is also of great significance to speed up the approval process for the listing of imported drugs "It used to take a long time for foreign innovative drugs to enter the Chinese market Some new drugs were officially introduced into the domestic market 7 or 8 years after they were launched abroad, which to some extent affected the domestic patients' enjoyment of the most advanced drug treatment," a number of pharmaceutical industry people told reporters Data shows that between 2001 and 2016, 433 kinds of innovative drugs were listed in developed countries, and only 100 kinds were listed in China In recent two years, with the country actively promoting the reform of drug review and approval, the dilemma of foreign innovative drugs entering China is gradually breaking At the beginning of last year, the State Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) issued relevant policies to further clarify: "if the international multi center drug clinical trials conducted by overseas enterprises in China meet the relevant requirements of Chinese drug registration, they can directly apply for listing after completing the international multi center clinical trials", opening up a "green channel" for the import and listing of innovative drugs Since then, in the list of priority drugs released by CFDA, Bayer pharmaceutical and other international pharmaceutical companies' products have emerged in succession According to incomplete statistics, about 20 innovative drugs from foreign enterprises were approved to be listed in China in 2017, including Bayer, Novartis, Sanofi, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and other multinational companies The new drugs involve treatment fields such as tumor, hepatitis C, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, AIDS, high blood pressure, depression, etc., of which about 35% are anti-tumor drugs Analysts from securities companies pointed out that accelerating the import and listing of innovative drugs will also accelerate the upgrading of domestic drugs Ding liming, chairman of Beida pharmaceutical, said in an interview: "the national policy is based on the full protection of intellectual property rights, which will enable the international innovation achievements to enter the domestic market in the first time and promote the improvement of China's pharmaceutical innovation level." Ding hopes that the state will at the same time introduce supporting policies for domestic innovative pharmaceutical enterprises to accelerate the transformation of achievements, give preferential tax policies to Chinese pharmaceutical innovative enterprises, increase innovation reinvestment of enterprises, and provide policy support to domestic innovative enterprises when they move towards internationalization.