Recently, the National Health and Family Planning Commission, the National Development and Reform Commission ("NDRC"), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, the China Food and Drug Administration and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine jointly issued the Opinions on Safeguarding the Supply of Low-price Common Drugs (the "Opinions").
The Opinions put forward policies and measures for safeguarding the supply of low-priced common drugs from the aspects of improving price management, perfecting procurement methods, building up normal reserves for drugs in shortage, increasing supporting policies, etc. According to the Opinions, the NDRC will select drugs from the scope of government-set prices to determine the low-priced drug list and make dynamic adjustments correspondingly, and will simultaneously improve the methods for administering the prices of low-priced drugs and cancel the retail price ceiling of each drug.