China recalibrates drug pricing to balance costs and innovation
By MLex Staff ( April 21, 2026, 07:58 GMT | Comment) -- China is easing aggressive drug price cuts that threatened to undermine its pharmaceutical ambitions. The new pricing framework, unveiled last week, allows innovative drugs to command higher prices. The shift tests whether Beijing can balance affordable healthcare for 1.4 billion people with nurturing an industry that now accounts for 20 percent of global drug-development pipelines.Beijing is learning what other countries already know: You can't slash pharmaceutical prices to the bone and expect a thriving research industry. The question is whether its new approach can thread that needle....
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