Three pharmaceutical companies took the initiative to cut prices, Bayer Rivaroxaban fell as much as 66%

On September 12, the Yunnan Provincial Drug Procurement Platform released the ''2017 Yunnan Province Announcement on Enterprise Application for Price Reduction''. Among them, three companies including Kangdele, Zhengda Tianqing, and Bayer voluntarily applied for the price reduction of their drugs, and some products fell by as much as 66%.

Since 2017, Anhui Province, Zhejiang Province, Yunnan Province, Gansu Province, Liaoning Province, Shanghai City, Inner Mongolia and other provinces and cities have successively announced the application of pharmaceutical companies to actively reduce prices.

There is no doubt that the price pressure of foreign pharmaceutical companies is great. Since GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) launched its "price-for-market" strategy in China for its three varieties of Hoptin, Heweili and Verade in 2015, price-for-volume has become one of the ways for pharmaceutical companies to compete in the market in China.

After entering 2017, this trend is more obvious. Take Roche as an example. Since March 2017, Roche has sold the champion pegylated interferon a-2a injection (trade name: Pailuoxin) of interferon brands in China in Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Anhui provinces one after another on the basis of the original bid price. Actively apply for price reduction.

At the same time, the intention of the original research drug to deal with the expiration of the patent is also obvious. For example, in 2016, Bosentan, an Aikotelon product, took the initiative to reduce its price by 80% at the time of the patent cliff. The industry speculates that this time Bayer's Rivaroxaban has also cut prices in several provinces for this reason. Rivaroxaban as an exclusive product, sales continue to rise after the domestic market, but at present the domestic market is becoming increasingly fierce, in addition to the direct competition of multinational pharmaceutical companies, there are a large number of domestic enterprises are making generic drug declarations, and rivaroxaban's patent in China will expire in 2020.

For domestic enterprises, the willingness to take the initiative to reduce prices is not just to follow the trend. For example, the price of pemetrexed disodium for injection in Nanjing Pharmaceutical Factory, which applied for price reduction in Yunnan Province, will drop by 44.7 from 3800 yuan/bottle to 2100 yuan/bottle. It is understood that the market competition for this product is fierce, and there are at least a dozen domestic competitors, and the price reduction may be exchanged for a larger market. Another well-known enterprise Zhengda Tianqing, in addition to the injection site of citabine, which applied for price reduction in Yunnan Province, had earlier adjusted the price of its anti-tumor generic drug imatinib mesylate capsule, with a price reduction of 25% ~ 30% for different specifications. Industry analysis, the purpose of this move is to low-cost advantage to continue to impact the original research drug "Gleevec".

In addition, the current phenomenon of enterprises taking the initiative to reduce drug prices is not unrelated to the earlier national health insurance negotiations. With the successive landing of health insurance negotiation varieties, the relevant varieties are bound to make corresponding price adjustment moves.

For example, the price of ginkgo diterpene lactone meglumine injection, a drug for the treatment of ischemic stroke produced by Jiangsu Kangyuan Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., decreased by about 48% from 612.85 yuan/branch to 316 yuan/branch. It is worth noting that ginkgo diterpene lactone meglumine injection is one of the 36 negotiated varieties that were successfully shortlisted in the national medical insurance catalogue earlier. After being included in the "national medical insurance catalogue", the medical insurance payment standard is 316 yuan/branch, which is the price after Kangyuan's price reduction.

No matter what the purpose of the price reduction is, no matter whether it can achieve the desired effect of the enterprise, as far as the overall domestic pharmaceutical market is concerned, the tide of price reduction has been formed. People just need to wait, while enterprises need to find a breakthrough to get better benefits from other ways.

News source:http://www.y-lp.com/pages/Article.aspx?id=5196130100135535231

This news was re-edited and reorganized by the Huaxun team and added analytical comments.