In 2009, the National Development and Reform Commission and other nine ministries and commissions issued the "Implementation Opinions on Establishing the National Essential Drug System". The National Development and Reform Commission sets the national retail guidance price of essential drugs, and reduces unreasonable marketing expenses on the basis of maintaining the reasonable profits of production enterprises. This move aims to "open the knife" to some drugs with inflated prices in the pharmaceutical market.
"The basic drug system has reduced the burden of patients' medication, but it should be noted that some basic drugs have disappeared and pharmaceutical companies are no longer supplying them. "Due to the unified bidding by the government, many pharmaceutical companies have kept their prices very low in order to compete. However, after winning the bid, some of them stopped supplying because the profit was too low to produce, while others reduced the cost, resulting in some fraudulent acts, which harmed the interests of patients. For example, every box of compound licorice tablets from 6.9 yuan has disappeared, while the prices of other cough tablets are mostly between 20-30 yuan per box. A few days ago, the news that "100000000 hyperthyroidism patients suffered from drug withdrawal crisis" aroused great concern of the whole society. Therefore, because the bidding price of many cheap drugs is lower than the cost price for a long time, enterprises are unprofitable and stop production one after another, and cheap drugs in China are disappearing at the rate of dozens every year.