Analysing the effects of National Centralised Drug Procurement and Price Negotiation Policies on novel hypoglycaemic drug usage and costs in Shanghai, China: an interrupted time series analysis.

Objectives: To analyse the impacts of multiple rounds of National Centralised Drug Procurement Policy (NCDP) and National Drug Price Negotiation Policy (NDPN) on the utilisation, expenditure and daily cost of novel hypoglycaemic drugs.

Design: The drug procurement data were obtained from the Shanghai Medical Procurement Agency between January 2016 and December 2022. We examined changes in volume, expenditure of overall hypoglycaemic drugs by descriptive analysis. For novel hypoglycaemic drugs, we employed interrupted time series analysis with segmented regression to investigate the change in usage, expenditure and daily cost of specific drug affected by related policies.

Setting: All the public and private hospitals in Shanghai, China.

Primary Outcome Measures: Volume, expenditure and daily cost of novel hypoglycaemic drugs.

Results: From 2016 to 2022, the overall usage and expenditure of hypoglycaemic drugs in Shanghai have been gradually increasing. Consumption of novel hypoglycaemic drugs had shown a rapid increase, which was significantly increased by 212.28 defined daily doses (95% CI 188.25, 236.31, p<0.001) after policy implementation. For each specific drug, daily cost was significantly decreased immediately after policy implementation (p<0.001). Dulaglutide, loxenatide, liraglutide, semaglutide and dapagliflozin had all seen significant increases in consumption and expenditure after NDPN implementation (p<0.001). Vildagliptin and saxagliptin, which were affected by the NCDP, experienced a significant decrease in usage. Empagliflozin and canagliflozin, which were regulated by both NCDP and NDPN, experienced an initial increase, followed by a significant decline. Consumption of beinaglutide and exenatide was not upregulated by NDPN.

Conclusion: Implementation of NDPN and NCDP had successfully cut-off the price of novel hypoglycaemic drugs and significantly increased their utilisation. In the future, the government needs to control pharmaceutical expenses more strictly while ensuring the rational use of the drugs.