Shanghai buys $1.5b worth of innovative drugs, equipment

Medical institutions in Shanghai purchased innovative drugs and medical devices amounting to 10.8 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 73.1 percent, the city's medical insurance authority said at a municipal press briefing on Friday.

The leap was a result of Shanghai's further support to the development of innovative drugs and medical devices through multiple payment methods. Biomedicine is one of the three leading industries for the city.

Seven Shanghai government departments, including the Shanghai Municipal Medical Insurance Bureau and the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization, jointly released a document with 28 measures in July last year, aiming to bolster the development of innovative medicines and medical devices in the city's biomedicine sector.

The policy allowed consumers to choose from a wider variety of insurance options to pay for medical treatments.

"Also, last year, 75 percent of the patients paying for innovative medicines and medical devices obtained reimbursement from insurance in a swift manner, within an average of 2.3 days," said Xia Kejia, director of the Shanghai Municipal Medical Insurance Bureau.

"Moreover, all the medical products on the list of the city's new and optimal innovative drugs and medical devices were brought into the range to be covered by insurances, boosting consumers' willingness to choose such therapies," he said.

Xia also said that innovative medicines have been available for purchase at the city's 2,000 pharmacies since July.

Going forward, the bureau will strengthen its collaborations with other departments, and continue to implement the preferential payment policy for innovative drugs and devices through medical insurance. It will also attempt to support the expansion of online sales channels for innovative drugs and medical devices.

Zhu Qigao, deputy director of the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission, said such multiple payment methods regarding innovative drugs and medical devices has indeed pushed forward the high-quality development of the city's biomedical industry. Its industrial scale exceeded 933 billion yuan last year, an increase of nearly 5 percent from the previous year.