China News Service, August 22. In view of the current short- to medium-term and local shortages in drug supply, Zeng Yixin, deputy director of the National Health Commission, pointed out today that capital has significantly penetrated into the shortage drug market and marketers' monopoly has increased, etc., which have become important drivers of drug shortages or unreasonable price increases. In the future, the drug shortage problem will be solved by improving the shortage drug procurement policy, seriously investigating and punishing the monopoly of raw materials, market manipulation and other illegal activities.

Information picture: Pharmacy. Photo by Guo Jia

On the 22nd, the State Council Information Office held a regular briefing on measures to strengthen the supply guarantee and price stabilization of commonly used drugs. When answering relevant questions, Zeng Yixin pointed out that judging from the current multi-department survey, with the gradual establishment of a supply guarantee system for shortages of drugs, the shortage of drugs has been alleviated. Large-scale and long-term shortages are not the mainstream, and the main manifestations are short-term and local shortages.

The following problems are more prominent:

First of all, the timeliness and sensitivity of drug shortage monitoring and early warning need to be enhanced. The National Health Commission has established a direct reporting system for drug shortage information covering public medical institutions. However, information on the production, procurement, and use of raw material preparations has not yet been shared through China Unicom. The drug production suspension reporting system failed to collect information in a timely manner.

Secondly, the procurement and reserve policy for shortage drugs also needs to be improved. Some places place too much emphasis on price factors in procurement and limit purchases based on historical prices or the lowest prices in surrounding areas. As a result, companies cannot guarantee reasonable profits and are unwilling to supply. The dosage in remote areas is small, the distribution distance is long, the cost is high, and companies are unwilling to distribute. These are all reasons for the shortage of medicines. Moreover, most of the medicines in shortage are emergency medicines and other small-dose medicines. The economic cost of ensuring supply is not high, but the social benefits are great. Therefore, when the market mechanism fails, the government’s reserve role needs to be played, and regular reserves must be further increased.

Thirdly, the problem of market monopoly of raw materials and preparations for some drugs that are in short supply needs to be resolved with greater efforts. At present, it is found that capital has significantly penetrated into the shortage drug market, marketers' monopoly has increased, and there is a tendency to spread from raw materials to preparations and other fields, becoming an important driver of drug shortages or unreasonable price increases.

At present, anti-monopoly fines are still difficult to effectively punish and deter. Some criminals are emboldened, investigation and evidence collection are difficult, and punitive measures are not very strong and cannot have a sufficient deterrent effect. These are one of the reasons for short-term or local drug shortages.

In response to the above problems, Zeng Yixin said that the main next steps are: first, to improve the drug shortage monitoring, early warning and response mechanism, and promote the solution to the problem of insufficient timely and sensitive monitoring and response; second, to improve the shortage drug procurement policy, promote the solution of problems such as enterprises' unwillingness to supply, and ensure enterprise distribution at reasonable prices, especially distribution in remote areas, so that enterprises can have reasonable profits; third, to increase law enforcement and seriously investigate and deal with illegal activities such as API monopoly and market manipulation; fourth, to establish and improve the normal reserve mechanism for shortage drugs.