The General Office of the State Council has recently released the Opinions on Improving the National System for Essential Drugs (the "Opinions").
The Opinions specify policy measures in five aspects, covering all processes of essential drugs, ranging from the selection, production, circulation, consumption, payment, to monitoring. To be specific, the first is dynamically adjusting and optimizing the catalog of essential drugs; the second is practically guaranteeing the production and supply; the third is distributing and preferring these essential drugs in all aspects; the fourth is reducing the burden of drug expenses for the people; and the fifth is enhancing their quality safety. Further, the Opinions propose to bring essential drugs first into the list of medicines covered by the basic medical insurance, under applicable procedures, and raise the level of effective guarantees step by step. In addition, local governments are encouraged to explore effective ways to reduce the burden on patients and minimize the drug expenses borne by patients. Moreover, the Opinions call for efforts to subject all kinds of essential drugs to spot checks, strengthen supervisory inspections into the production process of essential drugs, and tighten the supervision of quality safety. Furthermore, drug varieties that have passed the consistency evaluation will be incorporated in priority into the said catalog of essential drugs, under applicable procedures, while those essential drugs failing to pass the consistency evaluation will be removed gradually from such catalog.