Qilu Pharmaceutical Sets National Lowest Price for Abiraterone Acetate Tablets

By Feng Qiu

On June 16, the Shanghai Sunshine Pharmaceutical Procurement Network published the "Agreed Procurement Prices for Certain Drugs Included in the City's Medical Insurance Coverage," setting the price of Qilu Pharmaceutical's Abiraterone Acetate Tablets (0.25g*120 tablets/box) at RMB 1,998, effective from June 23.

On April 15, Qilu Pharmaceutical’s abiraterone acetate tablets, submitted under the new Class 4 application pathway, were approved for market launch in China, deemed as having passed the consistency evaluation. The drug had already been approved in the United States in October 2019. As the fourth company to pass the consistency evaluation for this product, Qilu Pharmaceutical offered a sufficiently low price, even 28.64% lower than the lowest price in the national centralized procurement.

Abiraterone (Zytiga), developed by Johnson & Johnson, was first launched in the United States on April 28, 2011, and approved in China on May 6, 2015, for the treatment of prostate cancer. In 2019, abiraterone was included in the second batch of drugs subject to China’s National Centralized Drug Procurement. Hengrui Medicine, Chia Tai Tianqing, and Jiangxi Shanxiang Pharmaceutical, as the first companies to receive marketing approval, all successfully won bids. For the specification of 0.25 g × 120 tablets per box, the lowest winning bid price was RMB 2,800 per box, offered by Chia Tai Tianqing.

In July 2019, Hengrui Medicine and Chia Tai Tianqing’s abiraterone acetate tablets were successively approved for market launch, with pricing set at RMB 12,800 per bottle (120 tablets) and RMB 12,200 per bottle (120 tablets), respectively. During the second batch of the National Centralized Drug Procurement program, both companies reduced their prices by more than 70%. As three enterprises won the bids, the winning bidders secured the qualification to supply 70% of the agreed procurement volume in the first year. Qilu Pharmaceutical offered the lowest national price for this product, signaling its determination to compete with the other three winners for the remaining market share.