Can the State Department crack the drug shortage problem?

The State Council executive meeting held on August 16 pointed out that the establishment of a sound supply of essential drugs, emergency (rescue) drugs and other commonly used drugs to stabilize the price of long-term mechanism, the people's health and safety, is a major livelihood concerns. To work on the basis of the existing shortage of some commonly used drugs, the problem of unreasonable price increases, to speed up the centralized procurement of drugs and the use of pilot expansion, the national and provincial shortage of drugs in the list of varieties to allow enterprises to independently reasonable pricing, direct network bidding and procurement. For the State Council executive meeting proposed new initiatives, senior pharmaceutical industry experts Liu Mingrui said, the national and provincial shortage of drugs in the list of varieties to allow enterprises to independent reasonable pricing, direct network bidding and procurement, breaking the "double envelope" bidding and procurement limitations, will to a certain extent solve the centralized procurement of drugs when The "only low price is to take", "one size fits all" practice, to the production enterprises to obtain reasonable profits to provide a policy guarantee. However, between production costs and profits, relying solely on enterprises to consciously and strictly control production costs, reasonable pricing quotes, to ensure that drug prices remain in a reasonable range is not very realistic, which also requires more social supervision, as well as the government to introduce relevant systems to guide and regulate.

The meeting also made it clear that strengthening the early warning response, build a shortage of drug information collection platform, the implementation of the drug discontinuation reporting system, to promote medical institutions to set emergency (rescue) drugs and other stock alert line, establish and improve the shortage of drugs standing reserve mechanism to ensure that the public's basic drug needs. In the opinion of our special observer and deputy secretary-general of Anhui Pharmaceutical Industry Association, Gu Pioneer, this move will have a certain effect on easing the shortage of drug supply tension. However, in the implementation process need to pay attention to the following points: First, we should be good at using the Internet platform, the use of big data analysis, in advance of some may cause "shortage" of drugs to monitor, analyze the causes, targeted to give solutions, can not wait until the market shortage and then to punish, rectification; Second, the discontinuation report system. It is recommended to learn from the FDA's practice that the advance time should not be less than half a year, and there should be detailed description and supporting information for the reasons of discontinuation, so that the relevant departments can take timely measures to solve the problem before the real discontinuation as far as possible; Third, for some orphan drugs and drugs with uncertain market demand, the state needs to implement a drug reserve system according to the market demand for many years, and make a big data analysis report, especially For fluctuating years, the need to have the reason for the analysis, so that once the same situation occurs, timely adjustment of reserves for market demand. The executive meeting of the State Council also stressed that strengthening the normal supervision of drug prices and price enforcement, unreasonable price increases in accordance with the law to urge as soon as possible to correct, if necessary, to take public exposure, suspension of the network and other measures. Credit evaluation of pharmaceutical enterprises, improve incentives and disciplinary measures. Improve laws and regulations, monopoly, manipulation of drug market prices and other acts, the implementation of large fines, market bans until criminal penalties.