Two years on, China's healthcare reforms a mixed bag for industry
China's sweeping reforms are fundamentally changing the face of healthcare provision and delivery. Ling Sun takes a look at the likely winners and losers.
In the spring of 2009, the Chinese central government promulgated a much anticipated overhaul of the country's national healthcare system, setting out five major strategic goals: reform of drug pricing mechanisms; the establishment of a new national essential drug list (EDL); increased government funding for three public medical insurance schemes in a move towards universal coverage; strengthening of the grass roots community healthcare system; and reform of public hospitals.
Although the initiatives received mixed reactions from domestic and multinational pharma companies (MNCs), the general response from the public was positive. Two years on, and 2011 is the deadline for the government to implement the key reforms. Shanghai was the last local authority to issue a detailed reform plan, in May, and all other 30 administrative regions had published their initiatives by June last year. So what are some of the key issues under the reforms that will change the face of China's healthcare landscape and what will they mean for the industry?
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EU and ASEAN free trade: win-win partnerships?
Politicians hope that free trade between the EU and the ASEAN economic community will create win-win partnerships for both regions. One side looks much more likely to win than the other, says Ian Haydock.
Dismissed by critics as a cumbersome talking shop of diminishing value in a fast-changing region, the increasingly labyrinthine forum that is ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) did little to satisfy its detractors at its latest summit in Jakarta.
Ploughing through the seemingly endless series of working groups, committees, panels, offices and secretariats that make up the organisation, cynics might agree that the 10-country grouping has become a self-perpetuating monster, feeding on its own complexity.
The hope was to take forward a grand design for the creation of a common market and harmonious ASEAN economic community by 2015. But the agenda for summit 18 was soon derailed by political bickering over increasingly serious clashes on the Thailand-Cambodia border, with the lack of ASEAN leadership on the issue being seen as another sign of the group's problems.
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Is India's new trustbuster up to scratch?
A maturing M&A market put pressure on the Indian government to establish a competition authority to protect the interests of all stakeholders. The industry has already started to doubt the new regulator's pharma sector expertise, writes Anju Ghangurde.
Even as India's revised competition regulations, which aim to regulate large M&A deals, became effective, pharmaceutical industry leaders and dealmakers say they are concerned about the potentially inadequate domain expertise at the regulator and the time lines that have been put in place to scrutinise such transactions. They also believe that big pharma and Indian company founders wanting to sell their firms may tread cautiously towards deal-making, at least for now.
The Competition Commission of India (Procedure in regard to the transaction of business relating to combinations) Regulations, 2011, became effective on 1 June, but some local observers have expressed reservations over the CCI's composition. "The commission is full of retired bureaucrats and [the] absence of any domain experts is cause for worry," Dr Ajit Dangi, president and CEO of Danssen Consulting and a former president of Johnson & Johnson India, told Scrip.
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