A pharmacy in Shanghai Photo: VCG
China's National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) will lead a team to Shanghai on Tuesday to investigate recent concerns regarding the efficacy of certain government-procured medicines raised by medical experts.
During 2025 local "Two Sessions" where local lawmakers and representatives gathered to discuss policies and raise proposals,
MK socks several medical experts from Shanghai and Beijing, who were also local policy advisors, voiced concerns about the inconsistent efficacy of certain drugs procured under the centralized program.
The centralized drug procurement program was introduced by NHSA in 2018 to significantly lower drug prices through bulk purchasing, improving affordability for low-income individuals.
Since 2018, the procurement program has saved about 630 billion yuan (more than $86 billion), while the cost of innovative drugs included in the national health insurance negotiations during the same period has increased by about 520 billion yuan, CCTV reported.
The NHSA has prioritized these concerns and will lead officials from health, industry and drug regulatory authorities to Shanghai to investigate potential quality risks linked to government-procured drugs, NHSA announced in a letter to Shanghai Healthcare Security Bureau on its official website on Monday.
The NHSA asked Shanghai bureau to coordinate relevant experts for a meeting where officials can directly listen to their advices. NHSA officials said it will also focus on collecting evidence on medicine efficacy backed by clinical data demonstrating statistical significance.
NHSA emphasized there is no institutional arrangement that prohibits the procurement and use of "imported originator drugs," vowing to hold the selected medicine companies accountable if their procured drugs are found to have quality issues.
During the local two sessions in Shanghai, Zheng Minhua, director of the General Surgery Department at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital, submitted a proposal with 19 other experts from several renowned medical institutions in Shanghai. All as members of Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese people's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), they said that the national drug procurement program has greatly helped reduce both medical insurance costs and the public's economic burden, but they fear the quality of the medications may become unstable at such low prices.
"In clinical practice, we have found the efficacy of certain procured medicines is inconsistent, particularly with antibiotics, anesthetics, laxatives, and medications for hypertension and diabetes. Even increasing the dosage does not improve the effect. Doctors are often helpless in such situation because they have no choice and there is no channel to report the problem. Some patients experience poor therapeutic outcomes due to the switching of medications, and in some cases, this even threatens their lives", read the proposal.
The policy advisors said in the proposal that the medical industry is widely worried that the excessively low procurement prices may encourage unscrupulous companies to cut corners in order to reduce costs, potentially compromising the effectiveness of the medications.
Despite a lack of clinical trial support, many doctors have reported that, compared to imported or original drugs, the efficacy of procured drugs is inferior, said Lu Changlin, the chief physician of the cardiology department at Beijing Chaoyang Hospital and member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPPCC, in his submitted proposal during the 2025 Beijing "Two Sessions."
To better the centralized procurement program, Zheng suggested offering patients the option to choose original drugs and the health insurance departments could provide different reimbursement ratios based on whether the drug is original or generic, as well as whether it is imported or domestically produced, Eastday.com reported.
During the drug procurement process, Lu suggested health insurance departments to not only pay attention to the drug price, but also the size, strength, and reputation of the pharmaceutical companies so as to select products from reputable and capable pharmaceutical companies.
NHSA said it welcomes healthcare professionals to report issues concerning drug prices and quality, encouraging Shanghai experts to promptly report cases to the NHSA where there are statistically significant differences in efficacy indicators such as cure rate and treatment effectiveness before and after the implementation of drug procurement program.
Global Times
