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Retail prices of 22 medicines reduced
Factories will stop or reduce the production of cut-price medicines, he said, then produce other medicines that have the same effect but are more expensive. Hospitals, which sell the majority of the country's medicines, also often refuse to prescribe cut-price medicines, he added. Amoxicillin, which was on last year's list of price-reduced medicines, is a prime example. Its ranking among medicines used by hospitals fell from 58th in 2003 to 105th after its price was cut. A commission statement tried to counteract the lower usage. The pharmaceutical market is huge, and its management is quite chaotic, leaving big loopholes for businesses and hospitals to make colossal profits without caring about people's interests, one expert said. "Without taking more measures to tackle problems at the root, such as caring more about the patients as the policymakers decide the medicines' prices, the price reduction is empty talk," said Niu Wenyi, a public health expert at Peking University. At the end of last year, China had at least 5,000 pharmaceutical factories, 12,000 wholesale drug companies and 120,000 retail outlets. Most of the factories are small and do not make unique products. They have to engage in illegal practices, such as bribing hospitals or doctors to sell their medicines. Another cause of high prices, Niu said, is bad co-ordination of responsibilities among various departments under the State Council. The prices of medicines are fixed according to commission guidelines, but approval to produce new medicines is given by the drug administration department, and hospital supervision is the Ministry of Health's jurisdiction.
(China Daily 09/29/2005 page2)
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