By Susan Ning  Hazel Yin and Ruohan Zhang  King&Wood Mallesons’ Antitrust Group

untitleduntitledOn May 4, 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) published the Notice on Reinforcing Supervision over Drug Prices (“Notice”). The Notice includes a range of specific issues on the supervision over drug price, including immediately launching special inspections into illegal conducts under the Pricing law and the Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”). The Notice aims to implement the Opinions on Promoting the Drug Pricing Reform (“Opinion”), which was jointly published by the NDRC, the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and some other departments. The Notice and the Opinion were issued on the same day, and both cover the issue of reforming the drug pricing mechanism and reinforcing comprehensive supervision over medical expenses and prices. This article introduces the Notice with a focus on the antitrust issues that may occur in such special inspections, in order to provide advice for antitrust compliance in the pharmaceutical sector.

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