(Yicai) May 18 -- The next round of bidding for China’s centralized drug procurement program will cover a record number of more than 70 medicines and 233 dosage forms and strengths.

The figures were released by the National Organization for Drug Joint Procurement Office on May 15, and they are based on pre-filings by pharmaceutical companies. This is the first time that pre-filing has been used before a new round is formally launched, with the aim of making the drug selection process more transparent and open.

Since the centralized drug-buying program was launched in December 2018, China has completed 11 rounds. The next will be the 12th.

Competition among major treatments will be fierce, said Jin Chunlin, director of the Shanghai Health Development Research Center, adding that a number of star products, including Entresto (sacubitril valsartan sodium tablets), are highly likely to be included, and some have annual sales of as high as CNY8 billion (USD1.2 billion).

For drugmakers, the competitive pressure is significant, as centralized procurement has a big impact on the market trend of the drug varieties included, Jin said.

Cancer treatments, cardiovascular drugs, diabetes medications, immunosuppressants, and anti-infective drugs will be included in the next round, all of which are commonly used in hospitals, according to the pre-filing data.

Shanghai brought in a change to medical insurance payments on May 1, capping reimbursement at the selected centralized procurement price. If patients choose a non-selected original drug, they must pay the excess in full now, ending the earlier proportional reimbursement system that effectively gave high-priced drugs an indirect insurance subsidy.

The new policy is unlikely to have major impact on total procurement volumes, Jin noted, adding that hospitals may be more cautious when reporting volumes, but they still need to fulfill the contracted volumes they reported. From the patient side, he said, most people will still choose the lower-priced selected procurement drugs unless another drug offers clearly superior clinical value.

China will further refine the centralized procurement rules and use bidding, inquiry, and comprehensive evaluation to encourage rational competition among companies, Shi Zihai, deputy director of the National Healthcare Security Administration, said in last month.

Editor: Futura Costaglione