China plans to create new catalog to make innovative drugs more affordable

A staff member works at a workshop of a pharmaceutical company in Zhangshu, east China's Jiangxi Province, July 8, 2025. (Xinhua/Wan Xiang)

BEIJING, July 11 (Xinhua) -- China will compile a new catalog of innovative drugs to make such medicines more affordable to the public, the country's medical insurance authority has announced.

According to a document recently released by the National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA), the new catalog will include innovative medicines of high clinical value that can benefit patients with certain diseases.

Once compiled, the catalog will serve as a reference for commercial medical insurers and other stakeholders within China's multi-level medical insurance system to include these medicines in their coverage.

Apart from basic medical insurance, China's multi-level medical insurance system also consists of commercial insurers, charities, and others stakeholders.

Many newly developed drugs enter the market at high prices, making it difficult for the existing basic medical insurance drug list to provide coverage, said Huang Xinyu, an NHSA official.

Huang added that the new catalog will help protect the innovations of medicine developers while making these medicines more affordable for patients in need.

According to the NHSA, the compilation work of the new catalog will take place simultaneously with the renewal of the existing list.

In the past seven years, China's medical insurance authority has continuously updated the list, adding 853 new drugs.