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Retail prices of 22 medicines reduced
By Zhang Feng (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-09-29 06:00

Retail prices of 22 kinds of medicine were reduced yesterday by Chinese authorities, but pharmaceutical industry observers say the move will do little to make healthcare more affordable.

Retail prices of 22 kinds of medicine were reduced yesterday by Chinese authorities, but pharmaceutical industry observers say the move will do little to make healthcare more affordable.
A customer walks out of a drug store in Yichang, Central China's Hubei Province in this file photo. The banner reads "Medicine prices were cut 60 per cent at the calls of the government. Everyone says that the medicines here are cheap." [newsphoto]

The price reduction was announced by the National Development and Reform Commission, the department that oversees the macro-adjustment of the economy.

The average reduction in price of the medicines, which are widely used in hospitals, was 40 per cent.

According to the present sales volume of the medicines, the reduction totals around 4 billion yuan (US$490 million).

However, many officials and experts believe the campaign, as well as others in past years, cannot solve the long-standing problem of over priced medicines.

Currently, people have to buy medicines at too high a price, generally dozens of times more than they cost to produce. The reason for this is obvious in China: The price set when the medicine leaves the factory is already inflated, and becomes ever more so as it reaches consumers.

In the past eight years, China has held at least 16 such reduction campaigns involving more than 1,500 kinds of medicine.

"History tells us that a medicine whose price is cut will eventually die in the market," said a Ministry of Health official who declined to be identified.
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