The road to innovation for generic drug companies

In early October, the National Health Commission officially issued the First Batch of Encouraged Generic Drugs Catalogue. The first batch of 33 drugs encouraged to be generic was announced, and all relevant departments were asked to support them in clinical trials, research on key common technologies, and priority review and approval in accordance with relevant regulations. In the past two years, the Chinese government has accelerated its support for generic drugs. Previously, the National Health Commission, the National Development and Reform Commission and other 12 departments jointly issued the "work plan on accelerating the implementation of generic drug supply security and use policy".

Since then, Shaanxi, Heilongjiang, Guangxi, Jiangsu and other places have introduced policies related to the encouragement of generic drugs. "It is conducive to the promotion of generic drug research and development momentum, with the consistency evaluation and priority review system helping relevant enterprises to profit and drug quality to be guaranteed." Guoyuan Securities medical analyst Huang Zhuo told the author in response to the policy. The introduction of the above policy is a part of the pharmaceutical reform since 2015, and is a follow-up policy package of the front-end reform. With the implementation of relevant incentive policies, the priority procurement, clinical preference and medical insurance payment issues involved in domestic generic drugs are expected to be resolved. At the same time, the industry may usher in a major change.