Dispensing the new regulations allows the Chinese medicine decoction industry to “shake up”?

Chen, a chain pharmacy in Guangdong, was relieved that his prescriptions for the Chinese Herbal Piece Factory had finally been completed before the May 1st and will soon be put into production. Since the beginning of this year, he has been working hard for a decoction factory, which is related to a regulation issued by the relevant departments in Guangdong Province. From May 1st onwards, the pharmacy terminal in the province cannot dispose of Chinese Herbal Pieces.

It is understood that the pharmacy terminal can't arbitrarily divide the provisions of the Chinese Herbal Pieces and the state is concerned with the tightening of the regulation of the Chinese Herbal Pieces.

Secondary packing or self-contained

On January 5, the “Notice on Strengthening the Supervision and Management of Chinese Herbal Pieces” issued jointly by the State Food and Drug Administration, the Ministry of Public Health, and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine stated that: Chinese Herbal Medicine is a national basic drug catalog, and the quality is directly related to the quality. Chinese medicine medical effect. In order to further strengthen the supervision and management of the production and operation of TCM decoction pieces, it is required that the production of TCM decoction pieces must hold “Drug Production License” and “Drug GMP Certificate”, and must be organized under the GMP conditions of the drug; it is forbidden for the operating enterprise to participate in the sub-packaging of decoction pieces. Replacing activities such as labeling; provincial food and drug supervision, health administration, and Chinese medicine management departments should submit the work plan for the supervision and management of Chinese herbal medicines to the State Food and Drug Administration, the Ministry of Health, and the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine respectively before the first quarter of 2011. , and report monitoring and management work every six months.

According to the spirit of this notification, Guangdong Province will take the lead in strictly supervising the pharmacies' dispensing of Chinese Herbal Pieces from May 1. "Pharmaceutical Economic News" reporter recently called Shandong, Shenyang, Chengdu and other places, pharmacy operators have said they did not receive a specific notification similar to Guangdong. Faced with this new change, experts analyzed that it is a general trend to strengthen the supervision of Chinese Herbal Medicines from the national to the local. The threshold for the secondary distribution of Chinese Herbal Medicine Pieces is bound to increase. It is only a matter of time before the country implements uniform regulations.

It is reported that at the initial stage of the implementation of the "Drug Administration Law," due to the lack of production capacity of pharmaceutical preparations in China, in order to ensure the supply of drugs, the requirements for dispensing pharmaceuticals by drug trading companies have been regulated accordingly, allowing pharmaceutical companies to purchase large packages purchased from manufacturers. The Chinese Herbal Pieces are re-opened in accordance with market demand, and then packaged into small-size packages before being sold. However, there are many hidden troubles in secondary packaging. The industry has been controversial about this: First, once the TCM decoction pieces have left the original packaging, it is difficult to determine their manufacturers and production lot numbers. If quality problems occur, law enforcement officers can trace back even if they can Sources and manufacturers are also difficult to accept penalties. Secondly, because Chinese herbal medicines are simple to pack and easy to counterfeit, if drug companies are allowed to repackage them, criminals will use the name of sub-packaging to cause confusion to consumers. "Therefore, it is proposed to amend the provisions of the "Pharmaceutical Business Quality Management Regulations" to dispose the Chinese drug decoction pieces in drug trading companies," said the professionals mentioned above.

Although some pharmacies have the urge to build factories, it is not easy to build a factory because the state has more strict control over the production of drugs. Chen, general manager of the above chain pharmacy, said that they are the last resort. If all specifications of the decoction pieces are purchased from the manufacturers, the cost is too high. “I think that pharmacies build sub-packs of decoction pieces, which is a fancy high profit.” For this choice of pharmacies, Mr. Li, the OTC director of a pharmaceutical company in Henan, has a different view. He said that the decoction piece is a profit-making product and the gross profit should be around 70%. It is cost-effective for the pharmacy to build its own factory in the long run.

“If Henan Province also implements such regulations, it is really necessary for pharmacies to consider in advance the question of how to dispense decoction pieces legally. Building a factory is a viable option.” Insiders believe that more and more chain pharmacies have agreed to build factories. The practice indicates that in the past, the secondary processing of traditional Chinese medicine decoction pieces has been more scattered, and will be improved - to a relatively concentrated trend, eventually or self-contained.

Needs to spawn new products

According to relevant statistics, the market demand for Chinese Herbal Decoction Pieces has exceeded 30 billion yuan. Prior to the introduction of the new regulations, many strong chain drugstores took a slice from them and have established their own Chinese Herbal Piece Factory. Guangdong Dashenlin Chain Pharmacy Co., Ltd., which ranks among the top five in terms of annual sales, has already acquired a pharmaceutical factory a few years ago. It is mainly used for the production of Chinese Herbal Medicine Pieces and Health Care Tea, and launched “Ziyun” in all its stores. "English" brand series of fine medicinal herbs, Chinese Herbal Pieces. As the products are exquisitely packaged, the shop's exclusive cabinets have been decorated in a quaint manner, which is of great appeal to consumers. The Changsha People's Pharmacy, which is headquartered in Changsha, Hunan Province, has similar manufacturers and products. Judging from the recent trend, there are more and more pharmacy alliances or business (sales) zero (sales) alliances are also pushing their own branded products in this area.

In the future, more pharmacy terminals will join the Nuggets team. Will this give rise to the impact of the business of upstream companies?

“The impact on wholesale companies may be greater and the impact on us is smaller, because pharmacy terminals only do their part of the packaging, and we have our own GAP production base and sales channels are also relatively wide. From another perspective Look, even good for us.” Traditional Chinese medicine companies are generally more optimistic about their views, and their pieces of decoction have long been pharmacy equipment, channel equipment, hospital equipment and other diverse combinations. As people attach importance to health care, in recent years, hardcover decoction pieces introduced by companies such as Wanxi Pharmaceutical, Jilin Jidong, Jilin Yongxin, Harbin Pharmaceutical, and Guangdong Kangmei have been widely recognized by the market. “Even if there are more in the future, The pharmacy's own solution to the packaging problem will not have an impact on our hardcover decoction pieces. It will only exacerbate the fire in this category of products, and may even give rise to new varieties – super hard pack pieces.”

The rationale of Chinese medicine companies is that white-collar workers and gold-collar workers not only have higher requirements for the brand, quality, and quality of the decoction pieces, but also pay attention to the comprehensive contents of the exquisite packaging. “The main types of packaging are ordinary plastic bags and plastic bottles. In the future, a combination of medicinal and food products will be indispensable for a variety of herbal medicines. After that, super-premium beauty kits for whitening, acne, and chloasma will also be popular."

The Chinese medicine companies that know the brand's path also believe that unless the chain pharmacy's brand is very loud, consumers will have to re-apply to their subpackaged decoction pieces. The cost will be high. "In the long run, pharmacies will build factories. This is not the only way. Upstream and downstream cooperation and deep digging of the potential of Chinese Herbal Medicine are the way to win-win.”