CHINA HEALTH SCIENCES NEWSLETTER
Vol. 3 , No.26 - November 13, 2002
TOPICS THIS ISSUE:
- Professional Medical Insurance Companies become Possible
- China's largest Medicine Distribution, Trading Center under Construction
- China improves Quality Control of Chinese Medicines
- China's largest Joint Venture Hospital begins Trial Run in Xi'an
- Recalled Drug still Sold in China
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Professional Medical Insurance Companies become Possible
China's commercial medial insurance industry has many opportunities according to Wei Yingning, vice chairman of China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC).
The CIRC would push and ensure the professional operation and healthy development of professional medical insurance sector said Mr. Wei at the 1st Chinese Commercial Medical Insurance Forum. With the CIRC promoting cooperation between commercial insurance companies and medical service providers by enhancing regulatory and support, the CRIC has developed a draft regulation on the "Instructions on Developing Chinese Commercial Medical Insurance".
According to Mr. Wei, if the conditions were right, the CIRC would consider setting up professional health insurance companies. The CIRC was also working on opening the group health insurance market to foreign investment.
Chen Wenhui, another official from CRIC said the commercial medial insurance market in China is already quite large. In 2001, 17 life insurance companies launched 184 health insurance products. The premium income reached RMB 6.027 billion, an increase of 117.65% on the previous year. This number accounted for 4.24% of total life insurance income.
(Source: SinoCast China Business Daily News)
China's largest Medicine Distribution, Trading Center under Construction
Construction has begun on the Heping Medicine Distribution and Trading Center, said to be the largest in China.
Sichuan Dikang Industrial Share-holding Co., Ltd. and Chongqing Medicines Share-holding Co., Ltd. will jointly invest RMB 400 million (US$ 48.3 million) into the project, located at Wukuaishi in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province. Covering approximately 13 hectares and with a floor space of more than 50,000 square meters, the center, whose name means "peace", will be used as a venue for medicine distribution, trading and exhibitions. The project is scheduled for completion before April next year.
The center's annual transaction volume of medicine is predicted to be more than RMB 2 billion (US$ 241 million), according to the project investors.
Retail medicine sales in China is expected to grow by an average of 15% annually over the next five years, with the annual retail sales volume reaching RMB 60 billion (US$ 7.2 billion) by the year 2005.
(Source: Xinhua General News Service)
China improves Quality Control of Chinese Medicines
Chinese scientists have made a breakthrough in the developments of techniques for the quality control of Chinese medicines, a senior medical expert said on Monday.
The computer aided technology analyzes the "fingerprint," or distinguishing traits peculiar to each type of medicine, according to Qian Zhongzhi, director of the Chinese medicine department of the national pharmacopeia committee. The technology is also able to scrutinize the overall quality, instead of simply checking a few ingredients of each kind of medicine, Qian said.
The current quality control model for Chinese medicine was borrowed from that for chemical drugs, or analyzing certain compounds in drugs. This method is effective for chemical drugs made of a single element or few compounds, but is unreliable for Chinese medicines whose curative effects depend not on single active compounds but all active substances combined.
The technology expected to solve the key issue of standardizing Chinese medicine, promote worldwide acceptance of Chinese medicine and to protect intellectual property rights, experts said.
(Source: Xinhua General News Service)
China's largest Joint Venture Hospital begins Trial Run in Xi'an
Gaoxin Hospital, believed to be the largest Sino-foreign joint medical venture in China, recently opened in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi province.
The hospital, jointly funded by Success Harbor International Ltd of Britain and the Xi'an-based Shenxin Risk Investment Co. Ltd has a registered capital of RMB 700 million (US$ 84 million). Compared with domestic hospitals, the joint venture is well-equipped and provides patients with a better environment. It has imported a large quantity of sophisticated medical apparatuses and instruments, including the world's second tomographic video device, for viewing and examining patients' bodies by section, and a magnetoencephalogram (MEG), a brain x-ray device, said Wang Chongyou, vice-chairman of the hospital's board of directors.
Moreover, the hospital offers a wide range of personalized services. Patients are treated more like customers, enjoying ideal medical services but paying a higher price, Wang added.
To date, more than 200 Sino-foreign hospitals have been established around China since it allowed foreign firms to cooperate with domestic medical organizations in 1989.
(Source: Asia Pulse)
Recalled Drug still Sold in China
Despite a recent recall by the Chinese government, a controversial medication remains on the market in China, highlighting the problems officials face in attempting to reform the nation's prescription drug industry.
Bimolane, a medicine used to treat the common skin disease psoriasis, is suspected of links to cancer. The World Health Organization prohibited its use in 1985 after studies suggested it could cause acute myelogenous leukemia, the most frequently reported form of the disease in adults. China's State Drug Administration announced a recall and destruction of Bimolane last week, following a major nationwide campaign by physicians and health workers to recall the drug. "We have issued the recall and are currently in the process of removing this dangerous medicine from the domestic market," according to a spokesman for the State drug administration.
Despite the recall, Bimolane remains widely available in drug stores in Shanghai and some doctors are still prescribing the medicine -- which is sold under the Chinese name "Yishuangmalin." The failure of state drug authorities to keep Bimolane off the store shelves is an example of how profit often takes priority over safety in China's prescription medicine industry, physicians said.
According to state media reports, in Harbin, a city in China's northeastern province of Heilongjiang, one hospital recorded more than 170 leukemia cases related to the use of Bimolane in the past 15 years.
Physicians complain the medical community in China has been warning the government about the potential side-effects of the drug for years, but said authorities have failed to take action until now.
Plagued by soaring medical costs, a lack of fiscal oversight and widespread corruption in the prescription drug industry, Beijing has been struggling to reform the nation's troubled health care system. The sheer size of China's multi-billion dollar drug market has made it difficult for central authorities to regulate it, and provincial governments tend to shelter pharmaceutical firms.
Some doctors and drug retailers even take kick-backs from pharmaceutical firms to over-prescribe unsafe and often unlicensed medicines to patients, health care workers and local government officials said.
A manager at a local drug store, asked why Bimolane still was being sold, said she had not been notified by authorities of the recall and was unaware of the drug's suspected links to leukemia.
"We sell a lot of that medicine, I'm surprised that we haven't heard anything from the officials," she said.
(Source: United Press International)
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