In Depth: New Innovative Drug List Could Expand Access to Costly Breakthroughs
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For parents like Qin Fang, hope arrived in a bottle this July — followed immediately by a dose of harsh reality.
A new oral suspension, vamorolone, offered a treatment for her son’s Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare genetic disorder that relentlessly weakens his muscles. But the price tag, 22,480 yuan ($3,100) per bottle, translates to an annual cost exceeding 200,000 yuan for a small child, placing it far beyond the reach of many families.
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What Happened When
- 2023：
- Commercial insurance payouts for medical bills totaled about 380 billion yuan, covering 7% of residents’ medical expenses.
- 2024：
- Commercial insurance paid 12.4 billion yuan for innovative drugs.
- Late 2024：
- NHSA began referencing commercial health insurance more in policy documents, enabled insurer access to medical data, and allowed real-time hospital reimbursements.
- End of 2024：
- NHSA began drafting a 'Category C' drug list.
- December 2024：
- The idea of a 'Category C' drug list was introduced at the NHSA medical-insurance work conference.
- January 2025：
- The Category C drug list plan entered the public spotlight as NHSA clarified its purpose.
- March 2025：
- A draft of the NFRA’s A-class catalog for commercial insurance drug coverage was released for public comment, containing 30 drugs.
- July 1, 2025：
- The Category C concept was officially rebranded as the 'commercial insurance innovative drug list' in a joint NHSA–NHC circular.
- July 2025：
- Qin Fang obtained vamorolone for her son, with the price and affordability issues becoming apparent.
- Mid-July 2025：
- A multinational pharmaceutical firm's market-access team debated whether to pursue the basic drug list or the newly opened commercial channel.
- August 12, 2025：
- A preliminary version of the commercial insurance innovative drug list with 121 candidate drugs was released.
AI generated, for reference only
- CX Weekly Magazine
Sep. 12, 2025, Issue 35
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