Shanghai reviews quality of drugs in healthcare system

The National Healthcare Security Administration said on Monday that it will soon dispatch a team of government officials to Shanghai to solicit opinions on the quality of drugs involved in centralized procurement programs.

During the ongoing annual sessions of Shanghai's legislative and political advisory bodies, several political advisors and medical experts have voiced concerns over the efficacy of generic medications whose prices have been slashed through national or regional bulk buy programs.

Such programs see pharmaceuticals bidding for large-volume contracts with public hospitals, resulting in price cuts ranging from 50 percent to over 90 percent. The majority of them are homegrown generic medications.

While acknowledging the mechanism's role in alleviating the financial burden on patients and public health insurance funds, political advisors said that some drugs used to control high blood pressure or treat constipation, as well as some anesthetics and antibiotics, have not delivered expected outcomes or have appeared inferior to imported counterparts, Yicai.com reported over the weekend.

The administration said that it will gather authorities in health, industry and information technology and drug regulation, to head for Shanghai on Tuesday to collect suggestions on the procurement policy and quality of selected medications.

Authorities will focus on clues to quality and efficacy problems backed by clinical data and statistical differences in rates of cure, treatment effectiveness and adverse reactions between original drugs and generic versions. Results will be handed over to drug regulators.

They will also discuss approaches to further guarantee the efficacy and safety of procurement drugs, such as intensifying regular checks of drug manufacturers, fully publishing drug evaluation results and establishing feedback channels for medical institutions to submit their comparisons of drug efficacy.

According to information released by the administration on Monday, the volume of medications purchased through centralized procurement agreements generally accounts for 60 percent to 80 percent of the total volume requested by medical institutions, and these institutions can choose brands freely to fill in the remaining portion.

"There is no one-size-fits-all policy that prohibits hospitals from procuring imported, original drugs," it said. The administration added that companies winning bids have all passed drug efficacy assessments and are subject to random inspections. A real-world study researching bulk-buy drugs' use in 80 major hospitals has also been carried out.