Committee Member Lei Jufang: Improve China’s Scientific Research Evaluation System for Traditional Chinese Medicine

　　“Although the government attaches great importance to the development of traditional Chinese medicine products, judging from the recent practice of eliminating proprietary Chinese medicines through volume-based procurement in pilot cities and the actual sales data of the TCM industry in 2015, the outlook for proprietary Chinese medicines is not optimistic, and their growth rate has明显 slowed down,” said Lei Jufang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Chairwoman of Tibet Qizheng Tibetan Medicine Co., Ltd. “The main reason for the sharp decline in the growth rate of TCM lies in the perception that TCM is considered an auxiliary medication with limited ability to address patients’ clinical issues and that it consumes a significant portion of hospitals’ medical insurance resources. As a result, there is a need to substantially reduce the number of TCM products included in the catalog. Due to this misunderstanding—specifically, in the 100 national pilot cities for healthcare reform—most cities, lacking sufficient expert resources at the prefectural-level, have been unable to assemble experienced experts to conduct scientific assessments of clinical value and cost-effectiveness. Consequently, they have resorted to a simplistic and crude approach: using volume-based procurement (secondary price negotiations) and determining whether products meet price-reduction criteria as the sole means of screening and eliminating products. This practice is extremely detrimental to the development of TCM and will encourage companies to focus solely on cost reduction.”

　　“Globally, companies that possess blockbuster products are a hallmark of progress and development in the industry. Such achievements are precisely the result of continuous encouragement and support for innovation. Yet, the current bidding policies are moving in exactly the opposite direction,” Lei Jufang said with resignation.

　　In response, Lei Jufang suggests abolishing the practice of eliminating traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) through volume-based procurement in pilot cities. Instead, a mechanism should be established at the provincial level, involving clinical experts to review and update the catalog of TCMs. Furthermore, the 15% hospital markup on TCMs should be maintained to support the development of the TCM industry. Only by promptly reversing course—ending the practice of volume-based procurement (including secondary price negotiations) for TCMs—and shifting responsibility to provincial health and family planning commissions, which would lead teams of provincial experts to conduct clinical pharmacoeconomic evaluations of the TCM catalog, refine catalog screening criteria, and eliminate products with poor clinical cost-effectiveness—can we ensure that only those TCMs with proven efficacy and high quality find meaningful applications in clinical practice. Only in this way can we truly stimulate innovation among Chinese medicine enterprises.

　　In addition, Lei Jufang also suggested promoting the improvement of China’s scientific research evaluation system for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), establishing and refining research evaluation standards and systems that are tailored to the unique characteristics of TCM, and studying and perfecting incentive policies that foster innovation in TCM. Furthermore, she advocated conducting research on the evaluation and translational application of clinical efficacy in TCM, and setting up an efficacy evaluation system that is consistent with TCM’s distinctive features. She called for encouraging the pharmaceutical industry to allocate more resources toward accelerating its transformation and upgrading, advancing the digitalization, networking, and intelligentization of the Chinese medicinal products industry, strengthening technological integration and process innovation, enhancing the manufacturing capabilities of Chinese medicine equipment, speeding up the standardization and modernization of Chinese medicine production techniques and processes, boosting the industry’s capacity to leverage intellectual property rights, and gradually forming large-scale Chinese medicine enterprise groups and industrial clusters. Relying on modernized science and technology bases for Chinese medicine, we should launch a “Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Initiative” for the TCM-based health industry, thereby promoting the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors of the Chinese medicine industry. We should also carry out post-marketing re-evaluations of proprietary Chinese medicines, intensify efforts in the secondary development of these medicines, conduct large-scale, standardized clinical trials, and cultivate a group of renowned, internationally competitive formulations and pharmaceutical products.

　　Reporting media: Economic Reference News

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