It was learned from the national medical insurance bureau that recently, Hubei took the lead in the bid opening of centralized procurement of 19 provincial alliance Chinese patent medicines, with a procurement scale of nearly 10 billion yuan. Finally, 97 enterprises and 111 products were selected, and the average price of the selected products decreased by 42.27% and the maximum decreased by 82.63%. According to the calculation of the annual demand of the 19 provincial alliance, it is estimated that the annual drug cost can be saved by more than 2.6 billion yuan.
It is reported that due to its particularity, the quality of Chinese patent medicine is difficult to evaluate, and there are many exclusive products, so it is difficult to carry out centralized procurement. Since the reform of centralized drug procurement in 2018, no Chinese patent medicine has been included in large-scale centralized procurement.
“But the particularity of the industry is not a safe haven for falsely high drug prices.” The person in charge of the medical price and bidding procurement department of the National Medical Insurance Bureau said that in recent years, the state has strongly supported the development of traditional Chinese medicine, and the National Medical Insurance Bureau has specially jointly issued supporting documents with the National Bureau of traditional Chinese medicine. Through volume procurement, the problems of decoupling of volume and price, non-standard competition and gold sales in the drug purchase and sales chain are solved, which is one of the reasons for the 19 provinces to form an alliance for the centralized purchase of Chinese patent medicines. “We should not only let the people enjoy lower drug prices, but also purify the industry environment and return drugs to the essential attribute of treating diseases and saving people.” The official said.
The “highlight” of this centralized purchase work is to formulate the centralized purchase plan. More than 70 clinical experts from medical institutions, pharmaceutical experts, University and industry policy experts formed an expert group, and finally determined a highly targeted and innovative centralized purchase scheme of Chinese patent medicines.
According to the mode of centralized purchase of chemical drugs, for the same generic drugs that enter the centralized purchase, multiple enterprises need to compete through consistency evaluation. In view of the problem that there are many exclusive products of Chinese patent medicines, according to the national sales amount ranking of Chinese patent medicines and in combination with the actual varieties used by medical institutions, this centralized purchase selected some large varieties, consolidated and centralized purchase of drugs with different names with similar functions and indications, and finally determined the purchase catalogue of 76 kinds of Chinese patent medicines in 17 product groups.
Because there is no consistency evaluation as a support for Chinese patent medicine, the quality system is complex, and the direct use of simple price competition is easy to lead to the dispute of “bad money out of good money”. Therefore, this centralized purchase creatively adopts the comprehensive scoring method. The price competition score accounts for 60% and the technical evaluation score accounts for 40%. The technical score covers the recognition of medical institutions, supply capacity of drug enterprises, enterprise innovation ability, bidding and purchase credit evaluation, product quality and safety, etc. “In this way, we not only consider the price factor, but also consider the enterprise’s supply capacity, credit, quality and other factors, and solve the problem of no quality evaluation system.” The official said.
It is reported that this centralized purchase also introduces the recognition index of medical institutions in the comprehensive score, which is evaluated by all secondary and above medical institutions (a total of more than 24000) in 19 provinces of the alliance. Various cognitions, schools and viewpoints produce results through big data collision, which not only encourages high quality and good price, but also takes into account the clinical recognition and use connection of the bid winning results, It improves the credibility of quality and efficacy score. By establishing a scientific evaluation system, on the one hand, the drug safety of Lbx Pharmacy Chain Joint Stock Company(603883) is guaranteed, on the other hand, enterprises are forced to pay more attention to production quality, which has a far-reaching impact on the standardized development and high-quality development of traditional Chinese medicine industry.
It is worth mentioning that there are great differences in the space of falsely high drug prices among different enterprises, and the product prices of some enterprises have been low before centralized purchase, with little room for decline. If we simply compete according to the price decline, it is easy to produce the situation of “anti elimination of low-cost drugs”. In this regard, this centralized purchase stipulates that the products with the lowest average daily treatment cost in the same group without deduction sub items shall be given the opportunity to supplement and win the election, so as to ensure that the people have a stronger sense of access and enterprise fairness.
Chinese patent medicines are Lbx Pharmacy Chain Joint Stock Company(603883) commonly used medicines with many categories, wide uses and long course of treatment. By exchanging volume for price, it will greatly reduce the burden on patients and benefit a large number of ordinary people. Jiang Changshong, director of the price bidding and purchasing office of the National Institute of medical security, said that the selected price results of this centralized volume procurement met the expectations, generally in line with the principle of linking volume and price, and most products, especially those with large procurement volume, have achieved a considerable decline.
The person in charge of the pharmaceutical price and bidding procurement department of the national medical insurance bureau pointed out that the successful implementation of centralized volume procurement of Chinese patent medicines led by Hubei in 19 provinces marked that the reform of centralized volume procurement has expanded to the field of Chinese patent medicines, and opened a key first step for exploring the centralized procurement mode of Chinese patent medicines. From the initial centralized procurement of chemical drugs, to the centralized procurement of high-value medical consumables and biological agents, and then to the centralized procurement of Chinese patent medicine, the centralized procurement reform has built a “Puzzle” to promote the centralized procurement reform of medicine in an all-round way.
