Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Chairman of Betta Pharmaceuticals, Ding Lieming: Establish a "special channel" for rare disease and pediatric medications

The 14th Five-Year Plan is a critical period for the biopharmaceutical industry to seize strategic high ground and advance rapidly. During the Two Sessions in 2026, National Committee member and Betta Pharmaceuticals Chairman Ding Lieming focused on key issues such as medical insurance payment, industry funds, and patient capital, offering suggestions to address industry pain points.

Improving the efficiency of medical insurance fund supply is of great significance for promoting high-quality development in the biopharmaceutical industry. Currently, China’s medical insurance funds operate steadily overall, but there is a continuous need to strengthen support for medical innovation, optimize fund resource allocation, and improve operational management.

Ding Lieming recommends better leveraging the role of medical insurance funds and further strengthening strategic support for innovative products. On the basis of ensuring basic coverage, efforts should be made to expand the coverage of innovative drugs within the medical insurance system, including more qualifying new, effective, and life-saving drugs into the payment scope.

He also calls for accelerating the establishment of dedicated channels for rare disease and pediatric medications—immediate negotiations upon market entry to improve accessibility, timely inclusion at appropriate prices, so that these high clinical value drugs, which impose significant costs on patients and families but are manageable for the insurance fund, can benefit patients sooner.

Regarding the negotiation mechanism for the medical insurance catalog, Ding suggests considering multiple factors comprehensively during negotiations, scientifically determining payment standards to ensure reasonable prices and innovation returns, and exploring reserved periods for autonomous pricing to stabilize market expectations.

For innovative drugs that meet sales targets over two consecutive agreement periods, demonstrate significant clinical effects, and are reasonably priced, the process for renewal and new indications should be simplified, with no mandatory price reductions, and the negotiation period appropriately extended.

Ding also emphasizes the importance of utilizing the China Drug Price Registration System effectively, providing high-standard, fully transparent, and internationalized price registration and inquiry services. This will help enterprises build a global pricing system and support Chinese innovative drugs to “go global.”

For national negotiations on innovative drugs, he recommends accelerating the establishment of direct hospital access mechanisms or creating smooth green channels to ensure timely hospital entry; expanding the scope of “dual-channel” drugs, streamlining electronic prescription transfers outside hospitals, and strengthening supply guarantees for national negotiation drugs.

(Edited by: Wen Jing)

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