Increased by 7.1 times in 4 years! At the theme press conference of the "Authoritative Department Talks" series held by the State Administration for Reform and Reform on May 18th, Hu Jinglin, Director of the National Medical Security Bureau, introduced that the expenditure of medical insurance on new drugs has increased from 5.949 billion yuan in 2019 to 48.189 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 7.1 times. The prices of drugs and high-value medical consumables in China were once inflated: some "imported old drugs" have passed their patent period and are still expensive, and the prices of high-value medical consumables are also far higher than the international level. In the past, ordinary people spent high prices but may not necessarily be able to enjoy new drugs and technologies. In order to change this situation, the National Medical Insurance Bureau has launched a "combination punch", allowing people to use innovative drugs with better therapeutic effects at a more reasonable price. A box of Imatinib's original research drug from the movie "I'm not the God of Medicine" is priced at over 10000 yuan for the supply of "high-end" drugs and consumables at a reduced price. Through the implementation of national centralized volume procurement, the price of winning generic drugs has been reduced to about 600 yuan per box. Due to the impact of centralized procurement, the price of original research drugs has also decreased to over 7000 yuan. This is only a microcosm of the reduction in the burden of medication on the public through national centralized procurement over the years. Hu Jinglin said, "By institutionalizing and normalizing centralized volume procurement, we have begun to reverse the continuous upward trend of drug prices in China." According to relevant calculations, the drug procurement price index in China in 2022 has decreased by 19% compared to 2018. After the centralized procurement of high-value medical consumables, the prices of selected products have also continued to decline. The national organization's centralized procurement of 333 drugs has an average price reduction of over 50%, and the centralized procurement of 8 high-value medical consumables such as heart stents and artificial joints has an average price reduction of over 80%; Together with local alliance procurement, the cumulative burden reduction is about 500 billion yuan. At the same time, a large number of exclusive varieties of anticancer and rare disease drugs, such as Karelizumab and Nosenaxone, are included in medical insurance at appropriate prices, and after reimbursement, they have also reduced the burden on patients by over 500 billion yuan. What is more effective is that centralized procurement not only reduces prices but also improves quality, and drugs and consumables with the same efficacy can be replaced with "high-end versions". By reducing prices, we have effectively improved the accessibility of a batch of high-quality drug consumables, "Hu Jinglin said. The proportion of high-quality drugs in centralized procurement has increased from 50% before centralized procurement to over 90%; In terms of cost, taking heart stents as an example, the proportion of chromium alloy stents with better material performance has increased from 60% to over 90%, while stainless steel stents with average performance have gradually been delisted. In the future, the National Medical Insurance Bureau will carry out centralized purchase of ophthalmic intraocular lens, orthopedic sports medicine consumables, new batches of drugs, etc., and further strengthen the quality control and supply guarantee of the products purchased intensively. Over the past five years, 70 major new drug development special drugs have participated in medical insurance negotiations, with 66 of them successfully negotiating, with a success rate of 94%. "Li Tao, Deputy Director of the National Medical Insurance Administration, said that by quickly implementing the clinical application of innovative drugs, enterprises have received reasonable returns on their initial research and development investment, and their innovation enthusiasm has greatly increased. China's pharmaceutical industry is gradually embarking on a development path of emphasizing innovation and strengthening research and development, and the innovation drive of pharmaceutical enterprises is becoming increasingly strong. Data shows that among the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the A stock market, the total R&D investment in 2022 was 2.48 times that of 2018.