The Evolution of the Pharmaceutical Distribution System in China: Implications for Deepening Health-Care Reform

This study examines how the dynamic interaction of institutions, interests and ideas has shaped the pharmaceutical distribution system in China over time. It argues that since the 1980s, the common profit-seeking interests of drug manufacturers, drug wholesalers, hospitals and doctors have driven them to collude with each other, thereby making the pharmaceutical distribution system chaotic and ineffective. In order to reduce drug prices, this study suggests that the government implement a series of measures to stop collusion among the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals and doctors, and disconnect the interests of different parties in the pharmaceutical distribution system in order to deepen health-care reform. This study, which grew out of years of observation and reflection on health-care reform and political science, provides the most updated information about high drug prices and the development of the pharmaceutical distribution system in China.