China to strengthen medicine price monitoring

China's National Healthcare Security Administration has issued a guideline to strengthen regular supervision on medicine prices.

The administration will adopt measures including monitoring, warning, information disclosure and credit appraisal, aiming to establish and improve an effective price monitoring mechanism to better leverage the role of the government under market conditions.

The guideline notes that a unified regional and national-level procurement mechanism will be established to promote information and resource sharing.

The guideline also stipulates that the current drug pricing policy should be improved to ensure the supply and reasonable prices for drugs that are in short supply.