(Yicai) May 22 -- The second round of China's centralized bulk artificial joints procurement program will push down prices by an average of 6 percent compared with the first round based on the results from a proposed selection.

More than 6,000 hospitals participated in the latest procurement round, demanding 580,000 sets of artificial joints, slightly higher than in the first round, the National Healthcare Security Administration announced yesterday. The new round will be completed nationwide in June.

More than 6,000 hospitals participated in the latest procurement round, demanding 580,000 sets of artificial joints, slightly higher than in the first round, the National Healthcare Security Administration announced yesterday. The new round will be completed nationwide in June.

The second round selection included 167 products from 54 companies, including some leading domestic and foreign firms from the first round. The number of selected companies rose by 10 from the first centralized procurement in 2021, while the average price difference of the products narrowed to 1.1 times from 2.8 times.

"Whether the price will continue to fall depends on if the industry will experience a technological revolution and if alternative solutions to treat joint diseases will appear," Yao Yu, a professor at the School of Economics at the University of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Yicai. "The space for a significant decline in the short term is shrinking."

High-value medical consumables for artificial joints were included in China's national centralized procurement for the first time in September 2021. The bidding results showed that the average price of artificial hip joints fell to CNY7,000 from CNY35,000 (USD965 from USD4,835) and that of artificial knee joints fell to CNY5,000 from CNY32,000, with an average price drop of 82 percent.

The agreement period for the first round of centralized procurement was implemented in the first half of 2022 and will last two years. Over 1.1 million sets of selected products will be applied during the period, accounting for more than 90 percent of all artificial hip and knee joints used.

Editor: Martin Kadiev