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 accelerate development. During the 2026 Two Sessions, Ding Lieming, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and Chairman of Betta Pharmaceuticals, 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 need for continuous strengthening in supporting pharmaceutical innovation, optimizing fund resource allocation, and enhancing operational management.

To this end, Ding Lieming recommends better leveraging the role of the medical insurance fund, further strengthening strategic support for innovative products. Based on 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 “special 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 relatively affordable for the insurance fund, can benefit patients sooner.

Regarding the negotiation mechanism for the drug list, Ding Lieming 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 renewal process should be simplified, with no mandatory price reductions, and the negotiation period appropriately extended.

He 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 nationally negotiated innovative drugs, Ding Lieming recommends accelerating the establishment of direct hospital access mechanisms or streamlining green channels to ensure timely hospital entry; expanding the scope of “dual channels” for drug distribution, facilitating electronic prescriptions outside hospitals, and strengthening supply guarantees for nationally negotiated innovative drugs.