Using strategic price negotiations to contain costs and expand access to medicines in China

On 28 November 2019, China’s Nation Healthcare Security Administration and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security released: Notice on Including Year 2019 Negotiated Medicines in ‘National Basic Medical Insurance, Work-related Injury Insurance and Childbirth Insurance Medicine List (Category B)’. A key feature of the amendment to the list was a process of centralised strategic price negotiation with pharmaceutical companies underpinned by health technology assessment (HTA) evidence. In addition, medicines for cancers, rare diseases, chronic diseases and children’s diseases were prioritised in the price negotiations. In China, there is a nascent HTA network housed in 48 academic centres across the country and routinely called on to conduct such studies and deliver workshops and seminars. Although it draws on much guidance from HTA institutions in high-income countries (eg, UK and Australia), it differs in its independence from government and its decentralised nature. It is vital for China to continue to build capacity in the field of HTA and institutionalise it into health sector decision making to expand access to healthcare at reasonable cost and thereby achieve universal health coverage.