According to the official website of the National Medical Insurance Administration, in order to promote fair, honest, transparent and balanced prices of drugs with the same generic name and brand among provinces, the Administration recently issued a notice on promoting fair, honest, transparent and balanced prices of drugs with the same generic name and brand among provinces (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"). The Notice requires pharmaceutical procurement agencies to focus on "four identical drugs", which refer to drugs with the same common name, brand, dosage form, and specification. By comparing the monitoring prices formed by the national existing online drug price statistics, comprehensive sorting and investigation should be carried out. By the end of March 2024, the unfair and discriminatory high prices of "four identical drugs" between provinces should be basically eliminated. The person in charge of the Drug Pricing and Tendering Procurement Department of the National Medical Insurance Administration responded to questions from reporters regarding the relevant situation, stating that the current drug online pricing governance emphasizes correction and stop loss, promotes price fairness, integrity, transparency, and balance, and is not a one-sided pursuit of price reduction. Monitoring prices are not benchmarking against the lowest prices in the country, but starting from existing transaction prices, using statistical methods such as median and mode to find fair transaction prices. The monitoring price itself is a price level that enterprises independently set and can guarantee supply, within the acceptable range of the enterprise. For enterprises, it is a balancing of prices between regions, a partial correction, and there will be no widespread significant price reductions. The independent determination of drug prices by enterprises is a right granted by laws and regulations. At the same time, adhering to the principles of fairness, legality, honesty, and credibility, and avoiding price discrimination, is also a legal obligation that enterprises need to fulfill for independent pricing. The above-mentioned person in charge said that taking the "Four Same Drugs" that are concerned in the "Notice" as an example, the enterprise should independently list on the drug centralized procurement platform and accept local public hospital procurement. The prices listed on different provincial platforms should be relatively balanced, taking into account objective differences such as transportation distance, market size, transaction conditions, and payment efficiency between provinces. Prices between provinces can fluctuate slightly, but there should not be situations where prices in some regions are abnormally high. For example, the commonly used medication folic acid tablets of a certain enterprise are priced at 12 yuan per bottle in most provinces across the country, but in some provinces, the online price has reached more than 30 yuan. The price difference of more than 20 yuan cannot explain its rationality and necessity. Similar abnormal prices are unfair to local residents and medical insurance funds, and unfair and discriminatory high prices should not be allowed to erode people's medical and life-saving money. "In terms of specific operations, medical insurance bureaus and centralized procurement agencies in various regions should promptly contact and negotiate with relevant enterprises for unfair and discriminatory high prices discovered during investigations. Enterprises should take the initiative to correct deviations and treat each region fairly in terms of prices," the person in charge said. (Lixin News Agency) (Reporter Qiao Yeqiong)