Health & Beauty

The official website of the National Medical Insurance Administration recently released the "Announcement on Publicizing the Preliminary Formal Review of Drugs and Information for the 2021 National Medical Insurance Drug Catalogue Adjustment". A total of 271 drugs passed the preliminary formal review, of which 93.02% were newly listed drugs after 2016.

According to reports, from 9:00 on July 1, 2021 to 17:00 on July 14, 2021, a total of 501 pieces of enterprise application information were received, involving 474 drugs. The announcement shows that the original research drugs of Roche, Fosun Kate, Pfizer, Novartis, Xi'an Janssen and other foreign pharmaceutical companies have also crossed the formal review threshold.

In addition, there are several high-priced drugs that have passed the preliminary review. The most prominent is the first domestic Akirensai injection that can kill cancer cells and some rare disease drugs, such as human coagulation factor Ⅸ, which is used to treat hemophilia. Concentrated solution for agalsidase alpha injection for the treatment of Fabry disease, and velaglucerase alpha for injection for the treatment of Gaucher disease. Taking Gaucher's disease as an example, there are data showing that the annual treatment cost of Gaucher's disease, imiglucerase, is more than 2 million yuan.

How do you think that some of the more expensive drugs currently on the market have passed the preliminary formal review? The National Medical Insurance Bureau said that some of the more expensive drugs passed the preliminary formal review, which only indicated that the drug met the application requirements after the preliminary review and was qualified to enter the next adjustment link. Whether such drugs can eventually enter the National Medical Insurance Drug List must be subject to rigorous review including economics. Exclusive drugs must undergo price negotiations, and only those who have successfully negotiated can enter the list.