Innovative medicine in China: A choice between two paths

The Huiyu pharmaceutical listed in the science and technology board, according to the prospectus revealed that a large part of its financing will also be used to build an innovative drug research institute that covers an area of 60 acres and can accommodate 1,500 people.

It is estimated that in the next year or so, Huiyu Pharmaceutical's innovative drug results will come out one after another. At that time, Huiyu Pharmaceutical is expected to tear off the label of "generic drug companies" in one stroke, and become a benchmark drug company from imitation to imitation.

Perhaps the biggest advantage of imitation is that it is low risk, safe, controllable, can be more leisurely, do not have to bear excessive capital pressure, and do not have to cause deformation of action because of fast.

In fact, Takeda Pharmaceutical, Japan's largest pharmaceutical company, has chosen such a path. Takeda Pharmaceutical, which started from pharmaceutical distribution, began to do generic drugs, followed by imitation innovative drugs, and then new innovative drugs, and eventually became a global innovative drug giant.

Today, China's pharmaceutical industry is in a transition period, and the big trend is from generic drugs to innovative drugs. But how does this transition happen? How are risks controlled? How to reconcile ideal with reality?

It seems to be a good idea to promote creativity and foster creativity with imitation.

Go slow, go far

It is generic drugs, not innovative ones, that determine the basic health of a country.

Because medical insurance needs to control costs, compared with expensive original drugs, cheap domestic generic drugs can reduce the pressure of medical insurance, but also reduce the pressure of ordinary people to see a doctor.

There is no denying the fact that China has achieved significant savings in health care costs through the implementation of volume procurement. As China's population ages and health care costs continue to rise, generic drugs will become increasingly relevant.

In fact, even in the United States, the world leader in drug innovation, generics account for more than half of the market. According to the American Association of Universal Medicine's (AAM) 2020 Generics and Biosimilars Access and Savings Report, in 2019, a total of 4 billion prescriptions in the United States were issued for generics, accounting for 90%, but they only accounted for 20% of all drug spending. Ninety-two percent of generic prescriptions cost $20 or less.

According to the 2020 annual report of the Office of Generic Drugs in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, generic drugs have saved the healthcare system $2.2 trillion over the past decade.

In the European Drug Strategy published by the European Commission at the end of 2020, the European Commission mentioned that it will consider targeted policies to support stronger generic and biosimilar competition.

In fact, similar to the centralized procurement of drugs vigorously promoted in China in the past two years, countries will use administrative means to intervene in generic drugs and innovative drugs, encourage pharmaceutical companies to imitate drugs listed for a period of time, accelerate market competition, thereby bringing down drug prices. Because if everyone takes innovative medicines, no economy can afford them.

Therefore, in fact, we can conclude that generic drugs are the basic plate of health, and innovative drugs are the ocean of stars.

China needs companies like Zaiding, and it needs companies like Huiyu. The former manoeuvres and dances with the long sleeves of capital; The latter, from the beginning of birth, has embarked on a down-to-earth road, which is slow, but it is likely to go far.

One is looking at the stars, the other is down to earth, they have their own advantages. Of course, there are their own shortcomings.

But in the past two years, there were so many people looking up at the stars that they didn't bother to look down at the road, and even stepped on each other; And the down-to-earth people are few and far between, but these people are walking steadily.

In this regard, it may still need a top-down guidance, because the health of the Chinese people, after all, needs the Chinese people to tightly grasp their own hands.

The proportion of medical GDP in the United States has reached 17%, which is basically the country with the highest medical and medical costs in the mainstream economy. Therefore, the innovative drug research and development industry is a paradise in the real sense, but not every American can see a doctor normally, in fact, the American medical system is eroding the whole society a little bit, and medical reform is also a card that every presidential election will take out.

Innovative drugs can have a higher treatment service experience in the current treatment guidelines, but for the masses, innovative drugs are not accessible to everyone, so generic drug companies like Sandoz, Mylan, and India Sun Pharmaceutical are, to a large extent, the true sense of the American people's "medicine God".