The State Council executive meeting on Feb 14 decided to innovate and upgrade the pharmaceutical industry, an industry not only crucial to public health, but also to the development of an innovative economy.

The State Council called for enhancing research and development for drugs in urgent need and speeding up the industrialization of drugs for frequently occurring and rare diseases. It also urged improving safety evaluation and product tracking systems, and strengthening supervision to ensure quality.

Moreover, the government will integrate the reforms on health care, medical insurance and the pharmaceutical industry, speed up approval procedures for urgently needed clinical drugs and medical equipment, and support medicine industrialization through ways such as industry funding.

Also, the government will seek to establish a modern circulation network for medicine that covers both urban and rural areas and set up national public service platforms for medicine information.

Some innovative medicines such as cancer-fighting drugs are not accessible in China, and patients have to resort to searching for overseas agents for cheap purchases in order to cut expenses. The insufficiency can be an opportunity for domestic pharmaceutical enterprises to develop and industrialize high-end medicine.

Pharmaceutical industry requires tremendous investment in early stages, but pays off in the long run. In the economic “new normal”, pharmaceutical enterprises should not only stick to research and development, but also focus on talent training as well as the transformation of research results into industrial products.