The National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) has issued a notification detailing plans to enhance the medical centralized procurement process in 2024. The goals include strengthening local procurement alliances and achieving a coordinated procurement strategy between national and local levels.
For the national volume-based procurement (VBP), new batches will be led by regions such as Shanghai, Jiangsu, Henan, and Guangdong. Additionally, a batch for continuous procurement of drugs with expiring agreements at the end of 2025 will be coordinated through provincial alliances. The procurement of high-value medical consumables, including a national unified continuous procurement of artificial joints, will also be executed.
Provincial alliance procurement will see an expanded scope, with eligible alliances being promoted to a national level, inviting participation from all provinces.
Breakdown of responsibilities includes:
- Hubei leading the tendering for patented traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs).
- Shandong heading the alliance procurement of TCMs in ready-to-use form.
- Henan managing the procurement of replaceable drugs from national VBP rounds.
- Sanming conducting tenders for anti-tumor and respiratory system disease drugs.
In terms of high-value medical consumables:
- Jiangxi will lead the alliance procurement of biochemical in vitro diagnostic reagents.
- Anhui will handle tumor markers IVD reagents.
- Zhejiang will manage breast circumcision needles.
- Fujian will procure vascular tissue closure ligation clips.
- Henan will oversee coronary cutting balloons.
- Hebei will be in charge of vascular intervention consumables.
The NHSA will increase coordination for VBP variety selection and expansion, ensuring that national and provincial procurement varieties are complementary and not overlapping. National VBP will prioritize drugs that have passed the generic quality consistency evaluation (GQCE), and high-value medical consumables VBP will focus on those that are artificially high in price and volume.
The provinces-led national alliance procurement will encompass chemical drugs that have not passed GQCE, Chinese patent drugs, and TCMs in ready-to-use form. It will also include commonly used clinical drugs and consumables with significant procurement amounts and wide coverage, as well as drugs and consumables that can clinically replace national procurement varieties or provide support.
The document sets a target that by the end of 2024, each province must complete at least one batch of drug VBP and medical consumables VBP tendering, with the national and provincial VBPs involving more than 500 drugs cumulatively.- Flcube.com
