Foreign companies have shouldered heavy costs for a piece of China’s $130bn pharma market. They have offered discounts of up to 85 per cent for drugs to join a list approved for coverage by China’s state-run insurance scheme. In a reverse auction, as in any other kind, it is easy to strain your budget.
Pharma groups cut the prices of their newest drugs by an average of 61 per cent to get their names on the list of 2,700 medications approved for reimbursement. These become the preferred choice for more than 1.3bn people covered by the national plan.
China’s population is getting wealthier even as it ages. No drugs multinational can afford to sit on the sidelines of this contest. The list features groups such as Merck, AstraZeneca and Roche, for which China is a key growth market. International sales at the Swiss company grew a fifth in the first nine months of 2019, mostly from cancer drug sales in China.