(Yicai) Dec. 3 -- China's first national drug price registration system independent from existing provincial drug procurement platforms was officially put into operation, providing pharmaceutical companies with an authoritative and transparent price publicity platform.

China Medicine Registration (website link: chinamedreg.com.cn) was built by the National Healthcare Security Administration and the Beijing Municipal Government to support drugmakers to voluntarily declare product prices based on their development needs, according to an announcement issued by the NHSA yesterday. It is open to global institutions and the general public for queries.

Applicants need to provide relevant materials and a letter of commitment to the authenticity of drug prices to the operator of China Medicine Registration, which will register the prices after verifying the materials, and will not interfere with the pricing process of the applicants.

The first batch of nine pharmaceutical companies completed their drug price registrations yesterday. They are China's Akeso, BeOne Medicines, China Meheco Group, Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, Iaso Biothrapeutics, JW Therapeutics, Tong Ren Tang, and Yifan Pharmaceutical, as well as Switzerland's Roche.

China Medicine Registration draws on international practices to provide drugmakers with authoritative, standardized, and transparent market price registration and inquiry services, which are not only conducive to Chinese innovative drugs going overseas but also to attract more foreign drugs to enter the Chinese market, thus benefiting domestic patients, the NHSA noted.

Since the beginning of the year, the pace of China's innovative drugs going overseas has accelerated significantly, with more than 100 license-out transactions completed in the first three quarters for a total value of more than USD92 billion, exceeding the USD51.9 billion in the whole of last year, according to data from PharmCube.

Before the launch of China Medicine Registration, the country's main drug information publicity channels were the provincial drug procurement platforms, which only disclosed drugs' centralized purchase prices after medical insurance negotiation, which is usually lower than the actual market price, an industry insider told Yicai, adding that the new system provides a channel for companies to disclose their true prices.

The credibility of the prices published on China Medicine Registration is far greater than those on provincial platforms and the terminal prices of pharmaceutical institutions, helping build a diversified drug price system and protect the independent pricing rights of enterprises, a pharmaceutical company insider told Yicai.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione