Low price drug tender stop "double envelope"

“The low-cost medicines used at the grass-roots level are still collected by the provincial-level drug procurement agencies for grass-roots drug purchases, agreed by the grass-roots level and agreed upon by the linked production companies, and signed purchase contracts.”

The news from the internal meeting of the Department of Health and Planning of the Department of Health indicated that due to deviations in the implementation of low-priced drug policies, the Health and Planning Commission will conduct nationwide supervision of low-price drug policies, especially tendering policies.

In this internal meeting titled “Accurately Understanding and Implementing the Policy of Supply Support for Commonly Used Drugs with Low Prices”, the Health and Planning Commission clarified the price control method for low-priced drugs, that is, canceling the maximum retail price limit originally established and changing to the production and operation. The price of purchases and sales is independently determined by the average daily expense standard. The Health and Planning Commission also explicitly requested that, with provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) as the units, direct low-priced drugs should be directly purchased through the network, and the medical institutions and the linked production companies with the corresponding qualifications should directly trade online.

In fact, this meeting was mainly to deny that some of the provinces and cities had taken a bias towards the “double envelope” tendering policy for low-priced drugs. For example, the Fujian Province Bidding Office issued a draft for the procurement of pharmaceuticals in Fujian Province, which requires low-priced drugs to implement the same "double envelope system" as basic drugs.

As of the end of July, in addition to Tibet, 30 provinces have announced provincial list of low-cost drugs, with an average of 213 supplements. Jiangxi, Shanghai, Gansu, Anhui, Jilin, Ningxia, Hubei, Hunan, and Hebei have started the procurement of low-cost pharmaceuticals and are expected to be fully implemented by the end of August.

Separate bidding

According to statistics, there are 273 overlapping varieties of low-priced drugs and "520-based drugs."

In 2010, the Guiding Opinions on Establishing and Regulating the Basic Drug Purchase Mechanism of the Basic Medical and Health Institutions of the Government issued by the Ministry of Health, the procurement of tendered, inquiries and purchases is also permitted for the basic medicines that are commonly used and cheap for clinical use. "Price procurement" means that the supply and demand parties negotiate the price, which is the embodiment of the low-cost drug procurement policy. Obviously, low-priced drugs do not conflict with the basic drug system, and they are perfect and complementary to the national drug-based system.

According to the “Opinions on Improving the Supply of Commonly Used Low Price Drugs” (No. 14), low-priced drugs are explicitly linked to online trading, and prices can be adjusted independently within the range of RMB 3 and RMB 5. The "double envelope system" is not a proper method for the purchase of low-priced drugs.

However, in the specific implementation, some areas have appeared in the phenomenon of low-priced drugs in accordance with the "double envelope system" tender.

According to the reporter’s understanding, the previous “Guiding Opinions on Establishing and Regulating the Basic Drug Purchase Mechanism of the Government for Basic Medical and Health Institutions” (No. 56) proposed that different procurement methods should be adopted to distinguish the different situations of essential medicines. Among them, the basic drugs that are commonly used in clinics and that are inexpensive, or the essential drugs that have been basically stable in prices after many purchases, are purchased by way of invitation for bids or by inquiries for procurement; and the commonly used low-priced drugs are directly linked to net purchases.

The relevant personages of the Health and Development Commission pointed out that the negotiated transaction between the supply and demand sides is a concrete implementation of the basic drug procurement policy, and there is no problem of subverting the procurement of essential drugs. Of course, the “two-envelope system” is still used for the procurement of drugs outside the list of commonly used low-priced drugs, as well as essential drugs with high prices and numerous manufacturers.

Purchasing mode unchanged

As for the mode of drug bidding, at the internal meeting of the Department of Health of the Health and Planning Commission, the Health and Planning Commission made it clear that it insisted on the centralized procurement of drugs by province (region, city) as a unit, the direct procurement of low-cost drugs, and the enhancement of medical institutions. The degree of participation is directly made by medical institutions and online manufacturing companies with qualified qualifications. It is no longer simply to reduce drug prices as an evaluation index for the performance of centralized drug procurement.

The Health and Planning Commission requested that grass-roots medical and health institutions continue to implement the requirements of Circular 56 and Circular 14 to implement centralized procurement and centralized payment. Therefore, the use of low-cost drugs at the grass-roots level, the provincial drug procurement agencies are still gathering grass-roots drug procurement needs, by the grass-roots commissioned and linked to the production network agreed purchasing prices, signed purchase contracts.

The reporter learned that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is working with relevant departments to further improve the central and local medical reserve systems, study and formulate a regular shortage of drug reserves, the State Food and Drug Administration, the Ministry of Human Resources and other departments will be in the priority review and registration of low-priced drugs Increase policy support in applications, medical insurance payment methods, and other aspects.

The relevant personages of the Health and Planning Commission stressed that the above measures are innovations in the drug price management policy and the perfection of the drug procurement policy. It is a policy for the use of low-cost drugs from the registration application to the production, supply, use, and reimbursement of the entire chain and the whole process. The purpose of support is to mobilize the enthusiasm of enterprises for the production and supply of commonly used low-priced drugs, ensure that drugs are available in clinical practice, restore the supply of classic old drugs, and meet the people's basic drug demand.