NHSA Moves Forward with China’s First Dual-List Adjustment for NRDL and Commercial Drug Catalog

On July 1, China’s National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) and the National Health Commission jointly issued Measures to Support High-Quality Development of Innovative Drugs, outlining 16 policy actions across five focus areas—from R&D to hospital access and multi-payer coverage.

On the same day, the NHSA also released a draft workplan for the 2025 NRDL and National Commercial Innovative Drug List Adjustment, opening it for public comment.

Together, these developments underscore strong political resolve to build a full-chain support system for China’s strategic biopharma sector. Among them, the move to establish a multi-level coverage framework—linking basic and commercial insurance—marks the most substantive step yet to address the long-standing affordability challenge that has hindered access within this broader initiative.

But what does this mean for global pharma?

• In the near term: Can the new commercial drug list offer earlier launch opportunities with less pricing risk and fewer operational hurdles—or will it distract from system-level, high-volume access?
• In the mid term: How will China’s shifting payer priorities and evolving payment architecture reshape pricing and go-to-market strategies?
• In the long term: What will this mean for the market potential of China’s innovative medicines sector? And how might it reshape the trade-off decisions companies make when evaluating the China opportunity?

We’ll explore these questions and more at our upcoming live C-List Strategy Panel.

🗓 Thursday, July 18
🕙 10:00 AM US EDT

Live panel access is limited to Masterclass participants.

📍If you haven’t yet registered for the Masterclass, please start here
📍If you’re already enrolled, register for the live panel here

Hope you can join us.