Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

China backtracks a little on drug pricing:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/04/17/us-china-drugs-idINBREA3G15Y20140417

China has backtracked on its policy of capping retail prices on medicines and will allow pharmaceutical companies to set prices for some drugs, after criticism that controls had caused a drug drought that derailed treatment for millions of patients.

The partial reversal of the price control policy, in an announcement quietly posted on a government website on Tuesday, will give drug companies that were reluctant to supply low-cost medicines greater incentives to do so and likely ease shortages.

China will loosen price controls on a list of "commonly used low-cost medicines", allowing pharmaceutical companies to set prices as long as the daily cost of taking the drug "remains in a certain range", according to a statement on the National Health and Family Planning Commission's (NHFPC) website. The statement did not specify what that range was and which medicines would be included in the list.

The affected drugs are presumably a subset of the government’s essential medicines list, which consists mostly of unpatented drugs produced by local companies.