Authority admits drug was overpriced
By Jane Chen and Li Xinran |
May 19, 2010, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE pricing authority of central China's Hunan Province has admitted it overpriced an anti-cancer drug that a local hospital has sold to patients at a price allegedly 14 times the factory price.
Guo Zhiqiu, an official with Hunan Pricing Bureau, said the bureau is also investigating how the drug, which never entered the bureau's online bidding medicine catalogue, appeared on the catalogue and was authorized for sale to the local hospitals, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.
According to an earlier media report, Hunan Xiangya No. 2 Hospital, a major hospital, sold the asparagus pills at 213 yuan (US$31) a bottle to patients, compared with the factory price of 15.5 yuan per bottle from its manufacturer Sichuan Chuanda Huaxi Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. Doctors prescribing the drug were said to have pocketed most of the profits.
A cancer sufferer surnamed Han was told by a doctor in the Xiangya No.2 Hospital to take three bottles a month while another doctor in the most prestigious Hunan hospital was witnessed prescribing patients 15 bottles of the pill in half a day, according to China Central Television on Sunday.
Dealers involved
The hospital could sell more than 1,000 bottles a months, said Wang Weijun, a sales manager with the manufacturer.
Nonetheless, the hospital bought the pill and other drugs not directly from their producers but through pharmaceutical dealers.
The provincial dealer backed by the government bought the pill at 15.5 yuan per bottle from the producer and sold them to distributors at 30 to 40 yuan a bottle.
Sales staff from distributors sold the pill to hospitals with 100-yuan markups, giving the 80-yuan difference to doctors, CCTV quoted Wang as saying.
"The higher the price, the more doctors prescribed and the more hospital purchased," despite China's goal for health care reform: higher charges for medical services but lower drug prices, said Yu Mingde, chairman of China Pharmaceutical Enterprises Association.
However, a Xiangya No.2 Hospital clerk in charge of purchasing drugs defended that all the drugs sold at the hospital were bought through centralized purchasing with their prices approved and published by the government.
Guo Zhiqiu, an official with Hunan Pricing Bureau, said the bureau is also investigating how the drug, which never entered the bureau's online bidding medicine catalogue, appeared on the catalogue and was authorized for sale to the local hospitals, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.
According to an earlier media report, Hunan Xiangya No. 2 Hospital, a major hospital, sold the asparagus pills at 213 yuan (US$31) a bottle to patients, compared with the factory price of 15.5 yuan per bottle from its manufacturer Sichuan Chuanda Huaxi Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. Doctors prescribing the drug were said to have pocketed most of the profits.
A cancer sufferer surnamed Han was told by a doctor in the Xiangya No.2 Hospital to take three bottles a month while another doctor in the most prestigious Hunan hospital was witnessed prescribing patients 15 bottles of the pill in half a day, according to China Central Television on Sunday.
Dealers involved
The hospital could sell more than 1,000 bottles a months, said Wang Weijun, a sales manager with the manufacturer.
Nonetheless, the hospital bought the pill and other drugs not directly from their producers but through pharmaceutical dealers.
The provincial dealer backed by the government bought the pill at 15.5 yuan per bottle from the producer and sold them to distributors at 30 to 40 yuan a bottle.
Sales staff from distributors sold the pill to hospitals with 100-yuan markups, giving the 80-yuan difference to doctors, CCTV quoted Wang as saying.
"The higher the price, the more doctors prescribed and the more hospital purchased," despite China's goal for health care reform: higher charges for medical services but lower drug prices, said Yu Mingde, chairman of China Pharmaceutical Enterprises Association.
However, a Xiangya No.2 Hospital clerk in charge of purchasing drugs defended that all the drugs sold at the hospital were bought through centralized purchasing with their prices approved and published by the government.
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