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E-mail Xinhua, January 1, 2025
Patients in China will access cheaper and more diverse medications in 2025 as 91 new drugs have been added to the national medical insurance scheme.
The price of the newly included drugs, which include medications for tumors, diabetes, rare diseases, and anti-infective and psychiatric drugs, will drop by 63 percent on average, according to a statement from China's National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) in November 2024.
This will result in an estimated 50 billion yuan (about 7 billion U.S. dollars) reduction in patient expenditures, the NHSA said.
Since its establishment, the NHSA has adjusted the national medical insurance catalog for seven consecutive years, increasing the total number of medications to 3,159 and significantly expanding the medical insurance coverage for chronic diseases, rare diseases, and pediatric medications.
In addition to expanding the drug catalog, the government has worked to lower prices through bulk procurement and price negotiation programs.
The latest government-led bulk procurement of medicines was just finalized in December. This marked the 10th batch of procurement jointly launched by the NHSA and relevant departments, bringing the total number of drugs purchased to 435.
Lu Yun, a scholar at China Pharmaceutical University, noted that the latest batch sets a new record for the quantity of drugs purchased.
"The new batch features both commonly-used drugs and high-end medications, including a variety of medicines for underlying health conditions related to cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, digestive and metabolic issues. It covers a wide range of demographics and will improve the quality of medication for patients and boost their chance to regain health," said Lu.
December also saw the completion of the latest round of bulk procurement of medical consumables. Approximately 11,000 cochlear implants from five suppliers and 258,000 peripheral vascular stents from 18 suppliers were purchased through the program, making them more affordable for patients with hearing or peripheral vascular diseases.
The NHSA estimated that the average price of a cochlear implant composed of an implant and a speech processor would drop from over 200,000 yuan to approximately 50,000 yuan.
The latest bulk procurement will significantly increase the accessibility of cochlear implants, making them a more attractive option for people with impaired hearing across all age groups, said Wang Wei, director of the Department of Otolaryngology at the Tianjin First Central Hospital.
Peripheral vascular stents are used primarily to treat peripheral vascular diseases such as vascular stenosis, thrombosis and aneurysms. Annually, 200,000 to 300,000 people undergo peripheral vascular stent implantation in China.
Dai Xiangchen, deputy chief of Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, hailed the significant reduction in surgical costs after peripheral vascular stents were included in the bulk procurement catalog.
While advancing bulk procurement, China has continued to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prices.
As of October, the negotiation program had benefited over 830 million recipients, saving more than 880 billion yuan in patient expenditure, according to NHSA statistics.
The price negotiation program is a major avenue for innovative drugs to be included in China's medical insurance.
Newly-developed drugs remain a focus of this year's price negotiations, said Huang Xinyu, adding that the effort is to ensure that "the money is spent on the most important things."
