(a) Bidding should be temporarily suspended until the State Council studies the results/impact of current bidding practices which are significantly influenced by the hospital funding problem, bidding as it is currently implemented is leading to patient access problems to essential drugs and high quality medicines, bidding is likely increasing and not decreasing inappropriate practices;
(b) If bidding continues it should be limited to lower end products until MOH fixes the problems in bidding;
(c) Need to maintain an "innovative" category in bidding during a transition period to allow pioneer companies to earn adequate return on their investments as, in launching their products in China, pioneer companies did not receive full intellectual property protection;
(d) After 2 or 3 rounds of bidding, the price for a particular product has stabilized, and consistent with Article 31 of the Working Standards, medical institutions should select other means of centralized purchasing;
(e) The draft bidding documents/forms being prepared by some company must be presented to industry for comment before being adopted;
(f) Local authorities should be prohibited from imposing price caps, particularly the use of the lowest previous purchase price;
(g) "Qualification" process should be standardized and reference bank created so companies do not need to spend time, energy and resources re-qualifying themselves;
(h) Bidding contradicts price policy of SDPC, which sets retail prices and industrial development policy because not enough profit is left for reinvestment into manufacturing and R&D.
