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Cold Water On Already Frozen Sector: Industry Growing Wary Of China Price Cuts

Can Country Shoulder Higher Costs?

 
• By Brian Yang

From orphan to cancer drugs, more products have had their prices cut in the latest round of reimbursement negotiations in China. Although the 60% average across 100 medicines was considered mild given it didn’t go beyond the previous year, it was still chilling and is prompting more firms, both multinational and domestic, to walk away from the process.

Deep freeze

China’s single public medical insurance payer, the National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA), has made it clear that its focus will remain on awarding reimbursement coverage to more drugs. But given that the funding pool is set to stay the same, this means more price cuts for pharma companies.

The latest annual round of price reductions in exchange for inclusion in the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL) reinforced what many in the industry had feared: that China's public payers won’t let up on aggressively cutting drug prices and there is no relief in

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