Centralized procurement cuts insulin prices, benefits millions of diabetes patients

BEIJING -- China's diabetes patients now have access to high-quality and more affordable insulin products, as the country's drug bulk-buying program for insulin products has led to an average price cut of 48 percent.

The centralized procurement is estimated to save 9 billion yuan (about 1.31 billion US dollars) in diabetes-related health expenditure each year, according to the National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA).

The price of insulin glargine, a typical product to treat diabetes, for instance, dropped from 180 yuan to about 70 yuan per unit, saving 4,000 yuan a year for each patient, said an official with the administration.

The special procurement for insulin products, which was initiated in May 2022, has benefited over 10 million diabetes patients and the number is still rising.

According to a report by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), China has one in four of all adults living with diabetes worldwide.

"The national procurement for insulin products has greatly eased our financial burden and brought us more and new treatment options," said Zhang Rui, a patient who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and has injected insulin regularly for more than 10 years.

The scheme marked the first time that biopharmaceuticals were included in the national centralized drug bulk-buying project, a program organized since 2018 to address expensive access to medical treatment of great concern to the people.

The procurement for insulin covers the second- and third-generation insulin products commonly used in clinical treatments, and 42 related products have entered the market with a price discount, the NHSA said.

The third-generation insulin products, compared to the second-generation ones, are less likely to cause hypoglycemia under the same blood sugar control.

Ji Linong, head of the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism of Peking University People's Hospital, said that the third-generation insulin analogues, which are now widely applied, can simulate the normal insulin secretion of the human body, enabling patients to take injections on a more flexible basis and increasing their treatment compliance.

"The procurement program narrows the price gap between the second- and third-generation insulin products, giving patients more options to manage their blood sugar level with safer drugs," Ji added.

In China, the number of diabetes patients aged between 20 and 79 stood at 140 million in 2021, and the figure is expected to reach 164 million by 2030, statistics from the IDF showed.

By 2030, diabetes awareness among Chinese adults should reach 60 percent or above, and the standardized management rate of this disease should grow to 70 percent or more, according to a "Healthy China 2030" outline released by the Chinese government.

So far, China has organized eight rounds of the centralized drug procurement program, with medicines included in the latest round to be accessible to patients in July.

A total of 294 drugs in previous rounds of procurement have seen their prices halved on average, covering common and chronic diseases including high blood pressure, coronary disease and diabetes, according to the NHSA.