“The price of medicines is the basic lever for price control. For Chinese medicine, if the price is too low and the cost is not enough, it will easily cause materials to cut corners and materials.” A few days ago, at the “Hong Kong Chinese Medicine Exhibition” forum hosted by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, Zhong Nanshan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, spoke in an interview.

"Price leverage" is prone to cutting corners

With regard to the current status of drug bidding, Zhong Nanshan has some concerns: “I think the basic lever of price when selecting drugs for bidding is actually very dangerous. For Chinese medicine, as far as I know, if the bidding price is not even enough, the cost price is not enough. When the actual medicine is used, it may be possible to cut corners, and the quality is difficult to guarantee. It is not difficult to obtain the certification when it is qualified in the tender, but after the supply of medicine is difficult to say.”

“In terms of Banlangen, there are many homes across the country, but the Banlangen of 'Baiyunshan' does have a good quality reputation, but it also has a high cost, so when it comes to the price of drug tenders, it should be comprehensively measured, not simply After the certification, whoever has the lowest price will be recruited.” Zhong Nanshan said that blindly “price leverage” may hurt the national pharmaceutical industry, and it is advisable to invite experts, people in the industry, etc. to establish a reasonable price based on cost and implement it on this basis. Bidding, in addition, the drug bidding system needs to be further improved.

For the NDRC's 28 consecutive drug price cuts, the public is still unaware of the phenomenon, Zhong Nanshan said: "This price reduction is only formal, many drug prices are high, or because of too many intermediate links."

He revealed to reporters that he is currently carrying out a search to find out which medicines that are in clinical need are no longer willing to be produced. For example, drugs such as sodium bicarbonate have already been abandoned by the market, and these have been abandoned. The situation should be known to the relevant authorities to ensure that these drugs can be produced and used normally.

Banlangen or similar antibiotics

Chinese medicines have suffered entry delays in the EU. In the past seven years, none of the Chinese medicines have registered with EU drugs. “I don’t think the West is accepting Chinese medicine. It's not because of its effective and ineffective considerations, but about the quality issues.” Zhong Nanshan told reporters, “A lot of Chinese medicine is effective, and I am now taking Chinese medicine to treat irregular heartbeats. After a while, the disorder has become less and less, and we are also conducting an in-depth study, and it has been done for three years and found that the active ingredients contained in Banlangen can protect human cells from viruses and may have similar antibiotics. The effect, especially the early adoption of the disease, worked well.” But he also stressed that without going from empirical medicine to evidence-based medicine, it will never progress.