The national system for the steady supply of hyperthyroidism

The National Health and Family Planning Commission recently announced that all provinces in the country have undertaken a list of companies that are responsible for the unified distribution of methimazole, in order to protect the nationwide supply of the drug and ease the predicament of a large area shortage of the drug. Sinopharm, China Resources Pharmaceutical, Jiuzhoutong, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Such large-scale pharmaceutical distribution companies shoulder the responsibility.

This was followed by the National Health and Planning Commission and other four ministries at the beginning of the year to convene the “Notification Meeting on the Supply Guarantee of Low-priced Medicines such as Formimidazole”. “Assuming such distribution work is mostly due to our obligation to consider. We have more than 20 branch companies in Sichuan and can basically guarantee the distribution. In November of last year, the company was allocated about 30 quotas.” Wang Jian, the person in charge of the unified distribution of Sichuan Kelun Pharmaceutical Trading Co., Ltd., said that since 2013, due to the low bid price of the drug, the social demand market has been unable to supply it and is in a serious “market failure” state.

Unbalanced demands

It has been possible for multiple ministries and committees to negotiate repeatedly and designate production and distribution. It can be seen that the nationwide shortage of methimazole as a life-saving agent for thyrotoxicosis has reached a very serious level. At present, methimazole has been included in the first batch of designated pilot production varieties by four ministries and commissions. With support from the competent department's funds and policies, Beijing Yanjing Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., the only manufacturer of methimazole, has gradually resumed production since August 2013. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also requested at the emergency meeting in early 2014 to ensure the national supply of methimazole.

According to a survey conducted by the reporter, at present, the Yanzimidazole tablets of Yanjing Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. are counted according to the production cycle, and they can produce up to about 10 batches of 200 batches each month, basically satisfying the market supply. However, the relevant person in charge of the company's production department said on the telephone, "According to the company's production plan, the relevant production line may not be entirely dedicated to the drug, but also have to take into account the production of other drugs."

At present, there are more than 17 million patients with hyperthyroidism in China, of which about 70% require long-term medication. For a huge market demand, the gap between supply and demand is still in place. Wu Yao, who is responsible for the distribution work of Sinopharm Group Cooperative Pharmaceuticals, told the reporter that “After the manufacturer resumes production, it has a buffer effect in solving the actual demand, but the supply is still not enough.”

Wang Jian also shares this feeling. After the "medicine shortage" occurred last year, the output of Yanjing Pharmaceuticals was distributed and distributed according to the quantity of drugs used in each province. "On the one hand, the company has not yet received the second batch of product distribution from the manufacturer. The manufacturer's explanation is that the raw material is insufficient, and it can only be how much the manufacturer produces and is allocated to the provinces. On the other hand, the production and distribution companies have not yet been established due to changes in the supply companies. With stable supply and marketing relations, some provinces are still unable to supply them normally."

Helpless swirl

The direct causes of the aforementioned supply shortage include the expiration of the GMP certificate for the raw material drug of Yanjing Pharmaceutical, which is still in the process of stopping the production. Recently, some media broke the news that “a hospital with more than 10% of local antibiotics has been out of stock or is about to be out of stock” because of the expiration of the import registration certificate for APIs. Although the first generic medicine of Renfu Medicine quickly fills up, it maps out the entanglements of upstream raw materials for the production of standing medicines.

Who is making cheap medicine "luxury hard to find"? According to Yu Mingde, president of the China Pharmaceutical Enterprise Management Association, “The reason for the supply of interrupted products is not hard to imagine. There is no incentive for production, distribution, and terminals under the current system where the base drug price limit and the low price of drug procurement are the winning bidders.”

100 tablets of domestic methimazole imidazole tablets, the highest price of 4.9 yuan, the lowest bid price of only 1.48 yuan, each piece of profit is only more than 1 minute. According to the official website of CFDA, there are 13 domestic companies that have production approvals for methimazole tablets, and three companies have had raw material drug production approvals that these companies have successively stopped or semi-discontinued. It is worth noting that almost all of the raw materials for this species are produced in China.

An industry insider who declined to be named frankly stated that “the fundamental reason for the shortage is the long-term rigidity of the pricing mechanism. Despite the fact that all localities are promoting the list of cheap drugs, the rigidity of management thinking is even more worrying. The government should regulate and control supply in the event of a market failure. Relationship, and this border is still blurred."

In order to solve the shortage problem, national ministries and commissions have designated distribution companies for the production and supply of low-priced drugs such as methimazole. They have implemented spot cash, changed their previous methods of selling at the bid price, and settled directly at the guide price.