Drug­mak­ers cut prices on av­er­age by more than 60% to get on Chi­na's 2022 NDRL list — re­port

Chi­na’s Na­tion­al Re­im­burse­ment Drug List (NRDL) is a crys­tal clear ex­am­ple of the coun­try’s bar­gain­ing pow­er in the biotech and phar­ma mar­ket, as more firms have re­port­ed­ly agreed to cut their prices for 67 new med­i­cines to be in­clud­ed in its na­tion­al med­ical in­sur­ance cov­er­age start­ing in Jan­u­ary.

Be­ing on the list is lu­cra­tive. Es­sen­tial­ly, if a biotech or phar­ma com­pa­ny gets on this list, they’re cov­ered by the biggest in­sur­ance net­work in the coun­try. Giv­en Chi­na’s vast pop­u­la­tion, the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment has sig­nif­i­cant lever­age to de­cide which med­i­cines can make a prof­it. While do­mes­tic drug­mak­ers are quite will­ing to play that game, cut­ting prices sig­nif­i­cant­ly in ex­change for get­ting on the list, in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies don’t do it as of­ten.

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