Author: Lin Zhiyin
Shortly after the price reduction of domestic new crown oral drugs was announced, imported new crown oral drugs also followed.
Recently, the "Price Adjustment Table of Some New Crown Treatment Drugs Hanging on the Internet" released by Jiangsu Province Public Resources Trading shows that the latest online prices of Pfizer's Paxlovid and Merck's Monoravir capsules are 1790.00 yuan / box and 1426.00 yuan / box, which is 1890 yuan / box and 1500 yuan / box respectively compared with the original 100 yuan / box and 74 yuan / box. The price of one box of these two drugs is equivalent to the price of one course of treatment.
Although the price of these two imported new crown oral drugs has been reduced, they are still not included in the temporary medical insurance payment list.
The original "Class B A tube" new crown medical insurance reimbursement policy expired on March 3. On March 31, the National Health Insurance Administration, the Ministry of Finance, the National Health Commission, and the National Disease Control Administration issued the Notice on Further Improving the Protection of Medical Expenses for New Crown Patients (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), stating that drugs that have not been formally included in the medical insurance catalogue in the new crown diagnosis and treatment plan can be temporarily included in the medical insurance payment scope if they meet the relevant conditions.
For new crown drugs to be included in the temporary medical insurance payment scope, the Notice also gives a price red line, that is, it must not be higher than 1.8 times the maximum course of treatment cost of small molecule new crown drugs in the medical insurance catalogue (that is, 630 yuan / course). At that time, the National Health Insurance Administration said that in the future, if the price of other new crown treatment drugs meets the conditions, medical insurance will also pay temporarily according to regulations.
However, from the above point of view, the price of the two imported drugs after the price reduction is still far above 630 yuan / course of treatment.
In the market's view, behind the unwillingness of the two imported new crown oral drugs to significantly reduce their prices, or unwilling to affect their global market pricing system, but the unwillingness to significantly reduce prices may also mean that the next two drugs have limited development space in the Chinese market.
Among the new crown oral drugs listed in China, there are a total of six, in addition to the above two imported drugs, there are also four domestic drugs. It can be said that the competition in the entire market is almost white-hot. Compared with imported drugs, the four domestic prices are not only low-priced, but also can be reimbursed by medical insurance. Real Bio's Azvudine has passed medical insurance negotiations in early January this year and officially entered the national medical insurance catalog, and the price after medical insurance is 1 yuan / course of treatment. The other three domestic drugs, Deuterium Remidvir hydrobromide tablets (Mindweed), Simcere Pharmaceutical's Sennotevir tablets/ritonavir tablets (Synoxin), and Zhongsheng Pharmaceutical's Leretevir tablets (Leruiling), have recently entered the temporary medical insurance payment list through price reduction, and the latest price of these drugs is not higher than 350 yuan / course of treatment.
In addition to price, some domestic new crown oral drugs are also trying to differentiate themselves from imported drugs in other aspects.
Take Zhongsheng Pharmaceutical's Leretevir tablets (Leruiling) as an example, which belongs to the same new coronavirus 3CL protease inhibitor as Pfizer's Paxlovid, but does not require the combined use of ritonavir. Although the use of ritonavir can increase the inhibition of 3CL protease and increase drug concentration, it also creates a difficult problem, that is, ritonavir tablets interact with many drugs, which will limit the use of some people to a certain extent. In other words, the Leretevir tablets of Zhongsheng Pharmaceutical (Leruiling), if it does not need to be used in conjunction with ritonavir, can be applied to a wider range of people.