New bulk-buy to drive drug price cuts

China's 11th nationwide centralized drug procurement round has selected 55 medicines, including antivirals and diabetes treatments, which are expected to become available at lower prices from February 2026, the National Healthcare Security Administration said last week.

Preliminary results from the bidding process, held in Shanghai on Oct 27, show that the chosen drugs cover a wide range of therapeutic areas such as infections, allergies, cancers, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, inflammation and pain relief.

Among the successful bids are the flu drug oseltamivir, a first-line diabetes medication called metformin and targeted cancer drug olaparib.

During this round of bulk-buy — where drugmakers cut prices to win bids for large-volume supply contracts with public hospitals — 794 products from 445 enterprises participated in the bidding. Ultimately, 453 products from 272 companies were selected.

Around 46,000 medical institutions had submitted their procurement demands in advance, some specifying preferred brands. The administration said that 75 percent of these requested volumes were successfully matched with winning products.

"The selected brands closely match clinical needs, and the majority of chosen manufacturers are established firms with proven supply capacity and reliable quality," it said. "Each region will be supplied by multiple winning manufacturers, ensuring a diverse and stable product selection."

Beyond addressing clinical demand, this procurement round emphasized quality assurance and discouraged abnormally low bids.

To reinforce quality control, bidding manufacturers were required to demonstrate prior experience in producing the same category of drugs. Additionally, the production line for the bid drug must have had no manufacturing practice violations within the past two years.

"Regulatory authorities will conduct comprehensive supervision and inspections of all selected products in the future," it added.

The competition in this round was notably more intense compared with the previous 10 rounds. To mitigate excessive competition and avoid extremely low bids, the administration introduced measures including an anchor price reference, a revival mechanism and proactive communication with companies to encourage reasonable pricing.

As a result, the round maintained a relatively high selection rate, while the average price gap among winning drugs was substantially smaller than in earlier batches.

The administration also emphasized efforts to prevent bid-rigging and collusion, as well as to promote a fair and competitive market environment.

Since the centralized procurement program was launched in 2018, a cumulative total of 490 drug varieties have now been included through 11 rounds.