(Economic Observation) Not just "soul bargaining", how should China's centralized medical procurement be improved in the next step?
China News Agency, Beijing, December 29th, title: Not just "soul bargaining", how should China's centralized medical procurement be improved in the next step?
China News Agency reporter Li Xiaoyu
As an important measure for the supply-side reform of China's pharmaceutical industry, the normalization of centralized procurement has effectively ensured that patients can afford and use high-quality commonly used drugs, and stabilize the "basic market" of medical safety.
At the same time, some key, difficult, and blocked problems have also surfaced, which urgently need to be further advanced in the exploration.
China News Agency recently held an internal seminar on "National Affairs Forum: Normalization of Centralized Procurement and High-quality Development of Medical Care".
Many experts said that centralized procurement has played an important role in regulating the order of the health industry market, correcting market failures, and improving the ecology of the medical industry, and it should continue to be improved in a targeted manner in the future.
Highlights: centralized procurement promotes high-quality development of the medical industry
Lou Hong, dean of the National Medical Security Research Institute of Capital Medical University, said that the centralized procurement of drugs and consumables will promote a balanced state in the field of medical insurance and medical care, especially in improving the level of drug use, promoting the reasonable return of drug consumables prices, and guiding the pharmaceutical industry and medical institutions to achieve a balanced state. In terms of quality development, it has played a more obvious role in promoting.
In addition, driven by centralized procurement, the number of good medicines has also increased. High-quality medicines have become the mainstream of the market, and low-end and backward products are gradually being cleared.
According to Wu Ming, a professor at the School of Public Health of Peking University, centralized procurement has regulated the market order, improved the industry ecology, and created conditions for innovation.
Overcoming Difficulties: How to improve centralized medical procurement?
In recent years, "soul bargaining" has attracted much attention during the centralized procurement process.
How should centralized procurement be improved in the next step?
Experts believe that economic laws and market laws should be respected, and the "low price theory" should be abandoned. On the premise of squeezing out the falsely high prices, the centralized procurement price should be maintained at a level at which enterprises can obtain reasonable profits, while not affecting related drugs. and the accessibility of consumables, without increasing the burden on medical insurance and patients, and achieving a balance among multiple goals.
Ge Yanfeng, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council of China, said that in the process of promoting centralized procurement, both the medical insurance department and other government agencies should respect market behavior and market laws.
A clear distinction should be made between procurement activities and safeguard policies.
Whether it is government centralized procurement or joint procurement of medical service institutions, it must abide by market rules, be fair, just, and transparent, exchange prices with the market, ensure quality, and improve accessibility.
At the security level, it is necessary to clarify and improve the sharing mechanism to ensure that the public can afford medicines.
Lou Hong also said that the direction for further improvement of centralized procurement in the future should be to earnestly respect the basic logic, historical logic and practical logic of market operation, respect economic laws, and strive to achieve a balance of multiple goals.
He suggested that the "only low price theory" should be abandoned and economic laws should be followed.
Wu Ming believes that the centralized procurement rules should be further improved according to clinical needs, with quality as the core and clinical value as the guide. The selected price not only covers production costs, but also pays attention to whether reasonable distribution costs and accompanying service costs of consumables are covered.
At the same time, it is necessary to properly handle the problem of medical insurance inclusion of high clinical value but relatively expensive medical products. It is necessary to avoid excessively high prices that will increase the burden on patients, affect accessibility, and affect the sustainability of medical insurance funds. If it is too low, enterprises will not get reasonable returns and will not be covered by medical insurance, and patients will not receive effective diagnosis and treatment.
Unblocking Blockages: Keeping Innovation on the Road
How to promote the high-quality development of medical care through innovation is also one of the difficulties that needs to be solved urgently.
Experts believe that in order to promote innovation, it is first necessary to have a clearer definition of the roles of the government and the market in the medical industry, so that the market can truly play a decisive role in resource allocation.
In addition, we should further expand opening up, give full play to the advantages of a large market size, and improve the quality and level of foreign investment, so as to drive better innovation in the domestic medical industry.
Zhang Wei, deputy director of the International Trade and Economic Cooperation Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce of China, said that the medical industry needs to develop better in an open environment.
At present, foreign-funded enterprises, especially foreign enterprises that produce medical devices, are quite competitive in high value-added fields. How to enhance the international competitiveness of China's pharmaceutical industry by encouraging foreign enterprises to improve their localization level is worth thinking about.
In addition, it is necessary to give full play to the advantages of China's super-large market size and stabilize the confidence of foreign companies investing in China.
Wu Ming believes that China is facing the task of creating a good market environment for pharmaceutical innovation through reform.
Central procurement has corrected market failures and created an innovative environment by greatly reducing the space for "rebates".
At the same time, the space vacated by centralized procurement can be incorporated into innovative products; centralized procurement products have small profits but high sales. If enterprises want to obtain higher profits, they can only innovate, which forms an effective innovation incentive.
(use up)