After "4 + 7", pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies are setting up the pharmaceutical retail market!

Source: Pharmaceutical Network

Pharmaceutical News June 26 4 + 7 affects the sales of online and offline varieties of pharmacies, but it also brings new opportunities to the pharmaceutical retail industry.

▍The impact of 4 + 7 has been extended to retail

Recently, at the "Prescription Drug Retail Reform and Development Seminar" hosted by the Southern Metropolis Daily Big Data Research Institute, Cyber Park learned that 4 + 7 not only affected the sales of physical pharmacies, but also brought changes to the e-commerce platform. .

As the representative of the online channel, Jin Enlin, general manager of Jingdong Health and Medicine Department, talked about the relevant situation: because 4 + 7 is only a partial pilot, the impact on the broader market is not particularly obvious. At present, the company is communicating with 4 + 7 varieties of manufacturers, but the other party has not yet talked about it and is pricing regionally on the platform.

More directly reflected in the data of online pharmacies. The first pharmacy Caizhi showed that a drug retail chain company in Xi'an, because of the large price gap between the hospital and the hospital, did not lower the price or make up the difference and removed atorvastatin calcium tablets. At the same time, the sales of some winning bids also declined.

▍Pharmacy is transforming layout

Although procurement by volume mainly involves three links: production enterprises, distribution, and hospitals, and is not much related to pharmaceutical retail enterprises, but "to move the whole body in one stroke" will have a certain impact on the pharmaceutical retail structure in the future.

Earlier, Wang Qiang, the chief researcher of Zhongkang Information Research Institute, publicly stated that 4 + 7 will bring about changes in the medication structure and the reconstruction of the retail market structure.

There are also opinions in the industry that because the price of the winning bid has dropped sharply in the hospital, the price difference between the hospital and the hospital has increased, and many varieties are price-sensitive products. In order to pursue low prices, patients are likely to return to the hospital or community, resulting in a decline in the chain of passengers. .

In order to maintain customer traffic, retail pharmacies may lower the prices of stores based on in-hospital prices, and the gross profit of prescription drugs in pharmacies will further decline, destroying the originally constructed high gross profit system.

Wang Qiang said that the chain pharmacies in the pilot cities have adopted a series of countermeasures, and existing pharmacies have gradually reduced or “dropped” the winning bidders. They have temporarily differentiated hospital prices by means of special regulations such as large packaging, focusing on the development of independent pricing varieties, focusing on policies, Predict the trend and impact, and transform the layout in advance.

▍Retail channels, new means for pharmaceutical companies after 4 + 7

Although the transmission effect of 4 + 7 has not been very obvious, it is clear that the out-of-hospital market has become the focus of attention in the pharmaceutical market. In the future, many companies will pay close attention to the distribution of retail channels. In the future, the out-of-hospital retail market will also become a medicine. A must-see for factories, commercial distribution companies, and chain pharmacies.

Because the strategy for non-selected companies to strive for the remaining non-volume procurement market is not feasible under the supervision of the Medical Insurance Bureau, companies must pay attention to the out-of-hospital channels to maintain the market pattern.

According to IQVIA estimates, if a product sells well in pharmacies or has pharmacy channel potential, then pharmaceutical companies can carefully consider price reductions. For example, Ipson ’s montmorillonite powder has a market share of about 10% of antidiarrheal drugs in the retail side of pharmacies, ranking third in the category. This dual layout of hospital and pharmacy channels can buffer the purchases brought by volume. Shock.

In this regard, listed drug retail chain companies may have more say.

Wang Fuguo, the secretary of Yifeng Pharmacy, once said: The drug sales channel may be reshuffled due to this policy. The price transmission mechanism of volume sales and distribution in the short term. For chain pharmacies, the gross profit margin of the same variety of products as the winning bid will be Decrease; in the long run, after all, the winning bidders are a minority, and more pharmaceutical companies that have lost market share in hospitals will tilt their marketing policies to chain drugstore channels.

There are views that the drug retail channel can be the best place for the differential promotion of most prescription drugs of pharmaceutical companies. After 4 + 7, the price of drugs has plunged sharply, making medicines from the profit section of the hospital to the cost section or even a burden. Prescription outflow is possible, and more pharmaceutical companies will look for pharmacies to undertake prescriptions.

On April 11, 2019 Hengrui Pharmaceutical Retail Strategic Customer Invited Meeting was held. Many well-known domestic pharmacies participated in this meeting. The general manager of Hengrui's Integrated Products Business Unit stated that Hengrui Pharmaceutical will use chronic disease medicine as a breakthrough in the terminal retail market in the future, and hopes for strong growth in this field.

Indeed, especially in the field of chronic diseases, manufacturers can cooperate with retail pharmacies for chronic disease management, because pharmacies have a wider terminal network and can also provide professional pharmacy services, which has more advantages in medical insurance payment. This has become a channel for pharmaceutical companies. Expansion, the opportunity to obtain profit growth points.