title: Estimated Financing Amount Needed for Essential Medicines in China, 2014.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  At the present time, the government is considering to establish the independent financing system for essential medicines (EMs). However, it is still in the exploration phase. The objectives of this study were to calculate and estimate financing amount of EMs in China in 2014 and to provide data evidence for establishing financing mechanism of EMs.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two approaches were adopted in this study. First, we used a retrospective research to estimate the cost of EMs in China in 2014. We identified all the 520 drugs listed in the latest national EMs list (2012) and calculated the total sales amount of these drugs in 2014. The other approach included the steps that first selecting the 109 most common diseases in China, then identifying the EMs used to treat them, and finally estimating the total cost of these drugs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results of the two methods, which showed the estimated financing amounts of EMs in China in 2014, were 17,776.44 million USD and 19,094.09 million USD, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Comparing these two results, we concluded that the annual budget needed to provide for the EMs in China would be about 20 billion USD. Our study also indicated that the irrational drug use continued to plague the health system with intravenous fluids and antibiotics being the typical examples, as observed in other studies.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Zheng-Yuan
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: School of International Pharmaceutical Business, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 211198, China.
authors.forename: Gong-Jie
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.forename: Chiao-Yun
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Kuo
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yi-Syuan
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D018954:Drugs, Essential / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D018954:Drugs, Essential