Hong Kong Stock Concept Tracking | New Commercial Insurance Innovative Drug Catalogue! Will the 2025 medical insurance catalogue adjustment and launch innovative drugs reach a historic inflection point? (with concept shares)
The Zhitong Finance App learned that recently, multiple benefits have continued to be released, benefiting the innovative drug sector. On July 10, the National Health Insurance Administration's “2025 National Basic Medical Insurance, Maternity Insurance and Work Injury Insurance Drug Catalogue and Commercial Health Insurance Innovative Drug Catalogue Adjustment Work Plan”, “2025 National Basic Medical Insurance, Maternity Insurance and Work Injury Insurance Drug Catalogue and Commercial Health Insurance Innovative Drug Catalogue Adjustment Application Guidelines”, “Negotiated Drug Renewal Rules” and “Non-exclusive Drug Bidding Rules” were officially announced.
Industry insiders said that it is easy to see from the content of the document that the regulatory level supports innovative drugs more clearly. In particular, the first formulation of a commercial insurance innovative drug catalogue has also opened up new ways to pay for high-value innovative drugs.
Meanwhile, according to Xinhua News Agency, on July 11, the 2025 National Basic Medical Insurance, Maternity Insurance, and Work Injury Insurance Drug Catalogue adjustments and the commercial health insurance innovative drug catalogue were officially launched. Eligible applicants can make online declarations through the National Health Insurance Service Platform from July 11 to 20.
The commercial insurance innovative drug catalogue, which was first added this year, mainly focuses on drugs with a high degree of innovation, great clinical value, and significant patient benefits, but which cannot be included in the basic catalogue due to exceeding the “basic insurance” positioning, to help improve the multi-level medication guarantee system, better meet the diverse drug use needs of the people, and provide more adequate economic support for the development of innovative drugs.
Furthermore, on July 1, the National Health Insurance Administration and the Health Commission jointly issued “Certain Measures to Support the High-Quality Development of Innovative Drugs”, which introduced 16 full-chain support policies at once, instantly igniting the market in the innovative drug sector.
Among them, the one that received the most attention was the opening of medical insurance data to pharmaceutical companies for the first time, which enabled innovative drug development to accurately meet clinical needs; at the same time, a commercial insurance innovative drug catalogue was added to find a solution to the payment problem for high-priced drugs; it also required hospitals to hold a pharmacy meeting within 3 months to equip new drugs. This “triple launch” policy combination has injected strong impetus into the innovative pharmaceutical industry.
Huang Jingjing, a pharmaceutical analyst at Wanlian Securities, said that China's innovative drugs continue to be implemented with large amounts of BD (business development), and it can be seen that China is currently experiencing a shift period from the fast follow (rapid follow-up) stage of technological innovation to the first in class (first-class original new drug) shift period of scientific innovation. China's innovative medicines have begun to have some scientific innovation, and are gradually shifting to riskier, original or differentiated products with global value. This is the general trend of biomedical innovation and transformation in China.
In recent years, China's innovative drugs have accelerated their entry overseas and received international recognition. In 2024, domestic biomedical companies reached more than 100 authorized transactions. The total amount of disclosed transactions reached US$52.3 billion, a record high compared to US$41.9 billion in 2023. As of June 12, 2025, the total amount of disclosed transactions had reached 50.1 billion yuan, which fully shows that China's innovative drugs have become high-quality assets in the eyes of the global pharmaceutical industry.
What is more noteworthy is that as of June 12, 2025, the number of licenseout (external licensing) transactions reached 77, which is 3 times the number of licensein (introduction authorization) transactions during the same period. This data clearly shows that innovative drugs are pressing the acceleration button when going overseas.
In terms of performance, on the evening of July 10, innovative drug leader Yao Ming Kangde announced an advance performance forecast. It is expected to achieve operating income of about 20.799 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, an increase of about 20.64% over the previous year; the adjusted net profit to mother will be about 6.315 billion yuan, an increase of about 44.43% over the previous year. In addition to Pharmaceutical Mingkang, 5 shares of Shanghai Pharmaceutical, Ganli Pharmaceutical, Nuotai Biotech, Shengnuo Biotech, and Boteng Co., Ltd. have released their 2025 semi-annual report forecasts, all of which are expected to improve. Among them, Shanghai Pharmaceutical expects to achieve net profit of 4.45 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, an increase of about 52% over the previous year.
China Post Securities believes that even short-term fluctuations in innovative drugs are normal, and they are still firmly optimistic about the 2-3-year innovative drug market. The first is going overseas. Although many high-quality BD projects already have certain market expectations, there is still a possibility that overseas valuations have not bubbled up, and going overseas has formed a positive cycle. There is still room for an increase in the global ratio of innovative domestic drugs in the future. Second, there is the capital level. Currently, Broadbase's allocation to the innovative drug sector is far from peaking, and there is room for foreign investment to improve the allocation of innovative drugs in Hong Kong stocks.
Bohai Securities said that a major policy on innovative drugs has been implemented, and a commercial insurance innovative drug catalogue has been introduced. It is recommended to focus on investment opportunities in related innovative drugs and related industrial chains, such as pipeline implementation, performance enhancement, and business cooperation. At the same time, it is recommended to focus on investment opportunities in sectors related to reversal of performance, such as the CXO sector, where overseas demand is improving and orders are gradually picking up, the medical device and pharmaceutical sector, which benefits from optimized collection rules, and the AI+ sector related to technology.
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