Remarkable Achievements, Promising Future - Comments on the Report by Li Keqiang

Premier Li Keqiang delivered the Report on the Work of the Government (hereinafter referred to as the Report) at the 13^th National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China on March 5, which attracted extensive attention. The Report mainly gave an overview of the achievements made by the Chinese government in the past 5 years and made proposals for the work of the Chinese government in 2018. The work of the government often plays a key guiding role for every walk of life, therefore, we medicinal workers mainly focus on the highlights on pharmaceuticals in the Report.

I. Three highlights in the review of the work over the past five years

1. Medical insurance coverage greatly increased, drug market development promoted by the increased purchasing power of the elderly

 (Source: www.gov.cn)

According to the Report, in China, "social old-age pension schemes now cover more than 900 million people, and the basic medical insurance plans cover 1.35 billion people, forming the largest social security net in the world."

Comment: On average, life expectancy has reached 76.7 years in China, with many elderly people; the reasonable medical insurance mechanism has greatly improved the purchasing power of the elderly, which does not only improve their life quality, but also improve their pursuit for health and disease drugs, promoting the development of the drug market in China from the side.

2. Drug market development boosted by the pharmaceutical mechanism reform

According to the Report, "We have carried out coordinated medical service, medical insurance, and pharmaceutical reforms. We have introduced a comprehensive reform in all public hospitals, rescinded the policy, long in effect, of allowing hospitals to profit from higher priced medicine, and made breakthroughs in the reform of approval systems for medicine and medical devices."

Comment: Achievements in this regard are obvious to all. China has successively introduced policies and measures like "two-invoice system" and "drug consistency evaluation" for the past few years, which have not only regulated the pharmaceutical product market of China from production to sales, etc., but also guaranteed the benign development of the drug market of China.

3: Medical insurance and serious disease insurance system gradually formed, to promote drug market development

According to the Report, "Government subsidies for basic medical insurance schemes for rural and non-working urban residents have been increased from RMB 240 to 450 per person; the serious disease insurance system is basically in place, and has already benefited more than 17 million people; the costs of hospitalization can now be settled where incurred; and the development of tiered medical diagnosis and treatment and healthcare consortiums has picked up pace."

Comment: China continued to increase financial investment in the basic medical insurance and serious disease insurance over the past five years, which increased the purchasing power of patients to some extent, especially in terms of serious disease treatment, they could select better drugs.

 (Source: www.gov.cn)

II. Three highlights in the "Proposals for the Work of Government in 2018"

1: Big data and Internet Plus to increase the success of drug R&D

According to the Report, "We will develop powerful new growth drivers. We will create big, strong industrial clusters in emerging industries, implement the big data development action plan, step up next-generation artificial intelligence R&D and application, and do more to promote the Internet Plus model in many fields like medical care, eldercare, education, culture, and sports."

Comment: Big data and Internet Plus have not only improved effect and efficiency in diagnosis and treatment, but also played a decisive role in drug development in recent years. With big data, drug developers can better grasp the market trends, and also faster obtain the R&D intelligence, thus to increase the success of drug R&D.

2: Reform in "medical insurance", "drug price", and "medicine circulation" to continue

According to the Report, "We will deepen reform of the old-age pension system, and establish a central system for enterprise employees' basic old-age pension funds to be used inter-provincially. We will deepen comprehensive public hospital reform and make coordinated moves to reform healthcare pricing, staffing and remuneration, medicine circulation, and medical insurance payment models. We will improve the quality of healthcare services and work hard to resolve the difficulties people face in accessing medical care."

Comment: China has gradually established the medical insurance drug price negotiation system and "two-invoice system" drug circulation system in recent years, which guarantees the pharmaceutical product circulation prices to be reasonable in China and brings actual preferences to the patients.

3: "Basic medical insurance and serious disease insurance benefits" system and TCM policy to be continued and consolidated

According to the Report, "We will raise the basic medical insurance and serious disease insurance benefits. Per capita government subsidies for basic medical insurance for rural and non-working urban residents will be increased by RMB 40, half of which will be used for the serious disease insurance scheme. We will expand the coverage of interprovincial on-the-spot settlement of medical bills through basic insurance accounts and make this applicable to community-level hospitals, and to rural migrant workers and other workers and business owners without local household registration. We will strengthen efforts to build up the ranks of general practitioners, and make progress in developing tiered diagnosis and treatment. We will continue to increase per capita government subsidies for basic public health services. Maternal and child healthcare will be improved. We will preserve traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and support its development. We will develop new ways of conducting food and drug oversight, and use the internet and big data to increase the effectiveness of this oversight. We will move faster to see that the entire process can be tracked and all information is traceable. We will see that there is nowhere to hide for substandard products, that there is no escaping justice for those involved in their production and sale, and that consumers can consume confidently and eat safely."

Comment: "Basic medical insurance and serious disease insurance benefits" system will be continued and consolidated in the future, which will further improve the purchasing power of the Chinese patients, to access better treatment effect and also help the development of the pharmaceutical market. Furthermore, China’s support in the TCM has been unprecedented in recent years, and China has successively introduced Law of the People’s Republic of China on Traditional Chinese Medicine and Administrative Provisions for the Simplified Examination and Approval of Registration of Traditional Chinese Medicine Compound Preparations Originating from Classical Prescriptions, etc., which causes TCM boom one after another, sufficing to show China’s strength and determination in supporting the TCM.

III. General comment

The work of the government often plays a key guiding role for every walk of life, which is applicable to the pharmaceutical industry. China’s pharmaceuticals, especially drug development level, have been greatly improved in the past five years based on the policies and measures introduced by China. We can see from the "Proposals for the Work of Government in 2018" in the Report that many policies and measures that lead to positive results will be continued in the future. Therefore, if I had to comment on this Report on the Work of the Government in four words, they would be: Remarkable Achievements, Promising Future!

References:

1.http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2018-03/05/content_5271083.htm

2.http://news.cnr.cn/native/gd/20180305/t20180305_524152982.shtml

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