A box of antipyretics such as Lianhua Qingwen and ibuprofen is hard to find.
A few days ago, many places optimized the epidemic prevention and control policies. Residents no longer need real-name registration information to buy "four types of drugs" through Internet platforms or pharmacies.
What followed was the surge in public demand for these drugs. Among them, Lianhua Qingwen and ibuprofen have become reserve drugs that people are scrambling to buy, and many pharmacies and online platforms have been out of stock.
To this end, some netizens ridiculed: "You can't buy it if you block it, and you can't buy it if you unblock it!"
The emergency of drugs has suddenly increased people's anxiety under the epidemic situation. What's more, some pharmacies even made a bad idea, either raising prices or bundling them.
China Newsweek found in the WeChat applet of People's Pharmacy that a single search for Lianhua Qingwen or ibuprofen showed "no relevant content for the time being", but the platform sold a variety of epidemic prevention packages containing Lianhua Qingwen, of which the most expensive one was as high as 428 yuan. In addition to Lianhua Qingwen, 14 drugs were bundled.
The public's demand for drugs has surged.
Recently, many places across the country have adjusted the management policies for online and offline purchase of "four kinds of drugs" for cough, fever, antivirus and antibiotics, and cancelled the real-name registration link.
With the optimization of epidemic prevention and control policies, the pent-up drug demand is released rapidly.
From the online situation, according to the data released by JD Health 65438 on February 6th, the drugs with obvious online sales growth mainly include cold medicines, antipyretic and antitussive medicines, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory medicines, etc. The turnover of the above drugs in recent 7 days increased by 18 times compared with that in 10, among which ibuprofen ranked fourth among TOP5 drugs.
At present, Lianhua Qingwen capsules in JD.COM drugstore need to be purchased by appointment, and they can only be purchased after 65438+February 2 1; Ali Health Pharmacy needs to grab goods every morning 10.
Offline pharmacies are the "main battlefield" for citizens to buy medicines every day. The data shows that in 20021year, the retail terminal market sales of pharmacies was 477.4 billion yuan, accounting for 26.9% of the total drug sales. Therefore, for the surge in drug demand, pharmacies feel more real.
According to reports, a pharmacy dealer in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province said: "A store sells 400,000 boxes a day, and the boxes are empty. They piled up directly in the store and started to sell out of the box instead of putting them on the shelves. Workers are working overtime to produce. "
Recently, China Newsweek visited eight pharmacies in Beijing. Seven of them have sold out Lianhua Qingwen and ibuprofen, and some pharmacies even posted notices at the door that Lianhua Qingwen and ibuprofen are out of stock. There are also pharmacies that say that not only Huaqing Wen and ibuprofen, but also all cold antipyretics are gone.
Netizen Li Qiang told China Newsweek that at first, when he went to the drugstore to buy medicine, he had to specify the brand and manufacturer. If not, he will try another pharmacy. But after several rounds, I found nothing, and I had no choice but to buy whatever I had.
In addition, he also summed up the experience of buying medicine: "At present, if there is a long queue in front of a pharmacy, it means that there are still Lianhua Qingwen and ibuprofen."
Beijing residents line up to buy medicine. Figure/photo by Yu Yuan
According to this netizen's experience, China Newsweek found a pharmacy with a long queue at the door, with a rough estimate of about 30 people. The staff said that there were not many drugs in the store, so they took measures to limit purchases. One person could buy two boxes of flowers and clear the plague.
65438+February 65438+February 65438 At the press conference on the prevention and control of the 43 1 COVID-19 epidemic held in Beijing, Xu Hejian, a spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Government, said that the rapid development of the epidemic has caused great pressure on medical services and drug supply in a short period of time, and advocated that everyone should buy drugs according to their needs and see doctors in different categories, instead of blindly following the trend.
It is not only Beijing that faces the challenge, but also the upsurge of drug purchase in many parts of the country.
As one of the six private chain pharmacies, Shuyu Civilian Pharmacy currently has 4,009 stores in Shandong, Liaoning, Fujian and other regions. Relevant staff said that the sales of antipyretic and cold medicines of the company have more than tripled recently. "The demand is really large and needs to be supplemented every day, but we have agreements with various pharmaceutical companies, which are basically guaranteed."
Price increases, bundling, chaos.
At the moment when the public's demand for drugs has soared, some pharmacies have the wrong attitude and the sales volume has increased from time to time.
On February 6, 65438, a news item "A drugstore sells a single box of flowers 100 yuan" rushed to the hot search. According to the report, the price of Lianhua Qingwen Capsule (0.35g*48 capsules per box) in a pharmacy is 102 yuan, while it is usually around 30 yuan.
China Newsweek inquired about several e-commerce platforms, and found that compared with official self-operated stores, the prices of third-party merchants on online shopping platforms were generally higher, and some merchants even sold 24 Lianhua Qingwen capsules per box to 68 yuan.
China Newsweek also noticed that the Hong Kong version of Lianhua Qingwen Capsule is becoming popular on the e-commerce platform. It is reported that the "Hong Kong version" of Lianhua Qingwen Capsule produced by Yiling Pharmaceutical is different from the products in the mainland market in packaging, but the formula and raw materials of the drug itself are the same.
In the overseas flagship store of MIDODOO, an e-commerce platform, the Hong Kong version of Lianhua Qingwen Capsule is sold in two boxes at the price of 130 yuan, and the average price of each box is 65 yuan. If you buy more, there is a discount. For example, the price of 8 boxes is 470 yuan, with an average price of 58.75 yuan, but at present it shows that it is out of stock and cannot be purchased.
The price increase is not only Lianhua Qingwen, but also antigen detection kit.
65438+February 65438+March, China Newsweek learned from Haidian District Market Supervision Bureau that a photography studio in its jurisdiction sells antigen detection kits at a high price, and a box of 25 COVID-19 antigen detection kits costs 250 yuan. At present, the studio has been put on file for investigation and plans to impose a fine of 300,000 yuan.
In addition to price increases, some pharmacies are also bundled in the form of "epidemic prevention packages", including many listed chain pharmacies.
Recently, a netizen who lives in Fengtai reported to China Newsweek that well-known chain pharmacies in China have bundled sales.
The "epidemic prevention package" sold by the WeChat applet of the people's pharmacy. Figure/WeChat screenshot
65438+February 65438+March, China Newsweek logged into the WeChat applet of People's Pharmacy and found that Lianhua Qingwen or ibuprofen were searched separately, but there was no relevant content for the time being, but various epidemic prevention packages sold on the platform all contained Lianhua Qingwen capsules, of which the most expensive one was as high as 428 yuan, and 14 drugs were bundled in addition to Lianhua Qingwen capsules.
Kong Lei, a lawyer of Beijing Dongyuan Law Firm, told China Newsweek that on February 9, 2022, at 65438, the General Administration of Market Supervision of China issued a warning on the price of materials related to the epidemic and the order of competition. Article 3 of the warning clearly stipulates that when the market sells epidemic-related materials as a whole, it is not allowed to tie in goods forcibly and raise prices substantially in disguise.
"On the platform of People's Pharmacy, people can't buy Lianhua Qingwen or ibuprofen alone, but there are Lianhua Qingwen in the tying epidemic prevention package, which is essentially the tying of other commodities when selling the materials involved. In response to the above behaviors, market regulators may impose fines and other penalties in accordance with the relevant provisions of the People's Republic of China (PRC) Price Law and the State Price Law. "
Coincidentally, just a few days ago, Hexi Store of People's Pharmacy Chain Co., Ltd. was warned and fined 500,000 yuan by Tianjin Municipal Market Supervision Comprehensive Administrative Law Enforcement Corps for tying up designated goods in the process of selling Lianhua Qingwen capsules, which was suspected of constituting an illegal act of driving up prices.
According to the data, People's Pharmacy Chain Co., Ltd. was established in 2005 and listed on the main board of Shanghai Stock Exchange on 20 15. In the first three quarters of this year, the company achieved operating income of13.776 billion yuan, up 225.438+03% year-on-year; The net profit returned to the mother was 66,543.80 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 65,438+04.46%.
By September 30th this year, the total number of stores in the company's marketing network reached 10327, covering 20 provincial markets and 140 cities above the prefecture level.
Demand blowout leads to insufficient production capacity
It's been three years since the epidemic. Why are our medicines still insufficient?
Guo Asia, executive secretary of China Medical Materials Association and chairman of Jingsou Medical Information Consulting Co., Ltd., told China Newsweek that the adjustment of four kinds of drug control measures led to a blowout in the demand for related drugs, and the production capacity of enterprises needed to be gradually released, resulting in a gap in a short time. "I used to buy a box, but now I buy five boxes at once. How to buy medicine like this? "
An executive of a listed drugstore chain also expressed the same view to China Newsweek. At the same time, he pointed out that before adjusting the control measures, the relevant departments did not inform pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies in advance to reserve the stocking time, which also aggravated the "drug panic" to some extent.
As citizens constantly complain that it is difficult to buy medicines, Beijing is making every effort to raise resources to ensure residents' demand for medicines.
It is reported that the US Food and Drug Administration in Beijing requires all pharmaceutical chain enterprises to increase their distribution power to ensure that terminal pharmacies replenish at least once a day. All e-commerce platforms have adopted the reservation mode, which can meet the needs of consumers in the near future.
Since February 5, 65438, Beijing has put about 400,000 boxes of Lianhua Qingwen granules and capsules every day, giving priority to densely populated pharmacies and community health service centers such as residential quarters and supermarkets. In addition, on February 6, 65438, Beijing distributed 200,000 boxes of Jinhua Qinggan granules at one time, giving priority to community hospitals.
China Newsweek also called relevant pharmaceutical companies to find out about drug production.
The relevant staff of Yiling Pharmaceutical said that it is not convenient to disclose the specific production capacity of Lianhua Qingwen capsules/granules, but the company has been doing a series of work to improve production capacity in the past two years, and the current production capacity has been greatly improved.
In recent years, Yiling Pharmaceutical has continuously increased the output of Dalian Huaqing products.
At the beginning of 2020, the company announced the capacity improvement project of Lianhua Qingwen series products. It is planned to complete the expansion of the production workshop of Lianhua Qingwen series products, improve the production capacity of existing production lines by increasing supporting production equipment, and add production lines of Lianhua Qingwen capsules, granules and tablets to improve the industrialization ability of Lianhua Qingwen products. After the completion of the project, it is estimated that the annual production scale of Lianhua Qingwen Capsule, Lianhua Qingwen Granule and Lianhua Qingwen Tablet will be 7.5 billion, 990 million and 265.438+0 billion respectively.
According to the semi-annual report of 2022, the total investment of the capacity improvement project of Lianhua Qingwen series products raised by Yiling Pharmaceutical is 254.866 million yuan, and the scheduled usable date of the project is February 28, 2022. By the end of the reporting period, the accumulated investment was 654.38+043.69.25438+million yuan, and the investment progress was 56.38%.
Xinhua Pharmaceutical is the "big producer" of ibuprofen in China, and the actual market share of ibuprofen is close to 40%.
Relevant staff said that the company is actively cooperating with the relevant requirements of the national epidemic prevention policy. A number of intelligent production lines in the production workshop are running at full capacity, working overtime to produce drugs urgently needed in the market such as ibuprofen tablets and vitamin C tablets, and fully ensuring market supply.
The above-mentioned listed chain pharmacy executives said that with the continuous increase of production capacity, it is expected that the problem of citizens buying drugs will be alleviated within half a month.
At the same time, the US Food and Drug Administration in Beijing also stressed that everyone should purchase medicines reasonably and rationally.
Yang Li, deputy director of pharmacy department of Tiantan Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, also said that most people newly infected with COVID-19 virus are asymptomatic. If asymptomatic infected people do not show relevant symptoms or signs during the isolation medical observation, they should keep moderate rest and drink plenty of water without drug treatment or any other treatment measures. According to the current policy, as long as isolation is done to avoid infection. It is of little significance to prepare drugs specially for COVID-19, especially to hoard a large number of specific drugs.
References:
Sales of cold and epidemic prevention drugs have increased substantially in a short period of time. Is it necessary to "hoard medicine"? Economic Daily, 2022- 12-06
Author: Yu Yuan