Rising cost of drug chemicals must be managed at the source

THE HEALTH AUTHORITIES of Liaoning have warned that 81 kinds of medicines will be out of supply soon in the province, because the rising cost of raw materials have prompted the pharmaceutical companies to stop manufacturing those medicines. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

Reportedly, the price of chlorpheniramine maleate, which is used to make medicines to treat the common cold, has rocketed 58-fold in one month, and the price of phenol, which is widely used in bactericides, has risen 100 times in a few days.

The production of bulk pharmaceutical chemicals is controlled by a few enterprises. For instance, among the 1,500 kinds of active pharmaceutical ingredients, 50 kinds can only be produced by one enterprise, because it is the only one that has obtained the production license for them, and 44 kinds can only be made by two licensed companies nationwide.