China to cut prices of more than 400 drugs from February

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China will cut prices of about 400 drugs for respiratory diseases, fever and pain by up to 20 percent from February, in a move to make medicines, including some products from Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, more affordable. It will be the fourth such price cut since 2011 and is part of reforms since the early 2000s to make healthcare cheaper and more accessible. China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement on Tuesday the latest round of price cuts involved 20 broad classes of medicines and would include specialty drugs. …