The eleventh batch of drug central procurement will open bids next month. Experts say this is a milestone batch in the implementation of centralized procurement for seven years.

On September 20th, the National Healthcare Security Administration released the eleventh batch of national organized drug centralized procurement documents, specifying that the eleventh batch of centralized procurement will open bids in Shanghai on October 21st. According to the scope of procurement varieties disclosed in the document, this round of centralized procurement covers 55 varieties, 162 specifications, involving key areas such as anti-flu drugs, innovative drugs for kidney disease treatment, and dosage forms including oral sustained-release dosage forms, inhaled dosage forms, and external patch dosage forms. It is reported that in the process of formulating and modifying the procurement plan for this round of centralized procurement, the principle of "stabilizing clinical practice, ensuring quality, preventing collusive bidding, and avoiding excessive competition" was fully followed. One major highlight is the optimization of price difference control "anchor points": to ensure fairness, this round of centralized procurement continues to control the price difference of the selected products to a certain extent. At the same time, in order to prevent individual companies from quoting abnormally low prices and "trip" other companies that have quoted normal prices, causing the selected price of the entire product to be too low, this round of centralized procurement has optimized the selection of the price difference control "anchor points," no longer simply using the lowest bid. This means that the phenomenon of "a tablet of medicine dropping to a few cents" may be difficult to reoccur in the future centralized procurement.