An Empirical Study on the Change of Medicine Price Level in China / 中国药学杂志

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To reflect the changes of medicine price level in China after canceling the maximum retail price limit, and to provide reference for the improvement of medicine price policy. METHODS: This research utilizes data of Chinese medicine economic information database of Chinese Pharmaceutical Association from January 2015 to March 2019 and compiles comprehensive and classified chained fisher price indexes among diverse policy control levels and different treatment categories. RESULTS: Over the past four years, the sale of west medicine(WM) by Chinese medical institutions showed a trend of decreasing price, with a decline of 13.99%. And the price of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) showed a trend of first rising and then falling, with a decline of 3.54%. From the analysis on different policy control levels, the price of medical insurance WM, non-medical insurance WM, medical insurance TCM and non-medical insurance TCM decreased by 13.32%, 14.27%, 1.36% and 14.29%, respectively. The price of medical insurance TCM fell less. And the price of non-medical insurance TCM rose and fell too quickly in a short period of time, and its fluctuation was obvious. Among medical insurance medicines, the price of category A WM raised by 4.5%, while the prices of category B WM, category A TCM and category B TCM dropped by 15.90%, 0.66% and 1.47%, respectively. The price of essential WM, non-essential WM, essential TCM and non-essential TCM reduced by 13.72%, 13.90%, 3.70% and 3.60%, respectively. From the analysis on different treatment categories, the prices of diabetes medicines, hypertension medicines and systemic anti-infection medicines decreased by 6.78%, 10.42% and 12.72%, respectively. Anticancer medicines had largest price decline with 26.69%. CONCLUSION: After canceling the maximum retail price limit, the price of WM declines steadily, while the price of TCM first rises and then falls. The changes of medicine prices vary greatly at different policy control levels. The trends of medicine price reduction among different treatment categories are the same, but the differences are large.