China has added 199 innovative drugs to its national medical insurance reimbursement list over eight consecutive years of catalog negotiations, the National Healthcare Security Administration announced on Wednesday.

The medical insurance fund has paid out a cumulative 504.8 billion yuan (about $74.04 billion) for negotiated drugs through February this year, driving total sales to 740 billion yuan and benefiting 1.17 billion patients.

Wang Xiaoning, an official from China's National Healthcare Security Administration, said the fund's strategic purchasing role has directly boosted pharmaceutical innovation. Annual profits in the sector have grown at an average of 11.3%, while research and development (R&D) spending has risen 23% per year in recent years.

China now accounts for roughly one-third of all innovative drugs in development worldwide. Overseas licensing deals for innovative Chinese drugs reached a record $130 billion in 2025. Six Chinese firms currently rank among the world's top 50 pharmaceutical companies, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said at a State Council press briefing on Wednesday.

Ahead of the briefing, China's State Council had issued guidelines to reform how drug prices are set. For highly innovative drugs with strong clinical value, prices at market entry should reflect high R&D costs and risks and stay relatively stable for an initial period, the guidelines say.

The document also calls for commercial health insurance and charitable funds to play a greater role in innovative drug pricing, and for multi-party participation in price negotiations to expand payment channels for innovative drugs, according to Xinhua News Agency.

(Cover: Chinese health authorities release information about China's drug pricing mechanism at a State Council press briefing in Beijing, China, April 15, 2026. /CFP)