The Pricing Strategy In China's Drug Supply Chain Under The Background Of New Medical Reform

The unreasonable high drug price is the major issue in Chinese drug supply chain,which is closely relative to the pricing strategies of pharmaceutical companies and public hospitals.The most common channel of drug sale is through various links in the supply chain by pharmaceutical enterprises and public hospitals,and to be eventually consumed by patients.The As the main body in Chinese medical institutes,public hospitals are not only the main buyer in drug procurement link,but also the main seller in drug sale link.However,as a kind of special commodity,drug's pricing is not only influenced by market supply-demand relationship,but also constrained by price policies.To rationally guide the drug pricing and effectively alleviate patients' medical burdens,Chinese government started the new healthcare reform in 2009 and set reforming drug price policies as one of the key tasks.Aiming at the procurement link in the upstream of drug supply chain,the reform implements and improves the Drug Centralized Procurement policy to replace the old decentralized procurement policy;aiming at the sale link in the downstream of drug supply chain,the reform implements the Zero Markup Drug policy to replace the old Fixed Percent Markup policy.Since the reform work,patients' medical burdens have been alleviated as a whole,however,drug prices even rise in some areas.The problem has not been solved thoroughly and the price policies show unstable performances.From the perspective of drug supply china and by building game model and comparing the equilibrium outcomes,this dissertation demonstrates the impacts of the drug policies on the pricing strategies of pharmaceutical companies and hospitals;summarizes the merits and defects of the price policies about solving drug price problem;puts forward some countermeasure proposals based on the research conclusions lastly.The innovative work of this dissertation is as follows.(1)About the pricing strategy of pharmaceutical companies in the procurement link.Under the decentralized procurement policy,public hospitals' strong positions and their preferences on high price drugs make pharmaceutical companies take strategies of pricing their products up to the price ceiling and thus increasing drug promotion;under the Drug Centralized Procurement policy,the companies switch their pricing strategies from increasing drug promotion to lowering drug pricing.The exaggerated drug purchasing price is eliminated.However,the organization of Drug Centralized Procurement does not participate in the real traction but deprives the bargaining rights of the both sides and damages their interests,which would induce the both sides to dodge the tenders and hinder the long-term effect of the policy.(2)About the pricing strategy of public hospitals in the sale link.Under the Fixed Percent Markup policy,the markup space of low price drug is limited,so public hospitals take the strategy of selling high price drug and pricing a large markup;under the Zero Markup Drug policy,the hospitals' pricing is strongly restricted,and reasonably formulating and cooperatively implementing the medical service price policy can guarantee the hospitals to sell low price drugs.And it is able to emlimiate the exaggerate drug sale price on the premise of not damaging hospitals' normal running.However,the Zero Markup Drug policy only eliminates the markup space of drug sale,and if the drug kickback exists,the Zero Markup Drug policy performances unstably and would even deteriorates the current situation.(3)About the pricing strategies of companies and hospitals in the whole drug supply chain.Considering the defects of any single policy,the effective way of thoroughly clearing up high drug pricing strategies is to ensure the Drug Centralized Procurement policy and the Zero Markup Drug policy be synchronously and effectively implemented at both the upstream and downstream of the supply chain.And reasonably formulating and cooperatively implementing the medical service price policy is the key to realize this effective way.