Because there are fewer drugs for children, doctors on the mainland often prescribe adult medications for children.
Because children’s body organs and physiological functions are not yet mature, there is a big difference between the use of drugs and adults, but the current situation of children’s medication on the mainland is worrying.
According to the March 3 report of the Economic Reference News, some industry insiders said that the problem of children’s medication is still prominent and medication safety is facing challenges due to the lack of special drugs for children, the lack of appropriate dosage form specifications and the insufficient proportion of children’s dosage forms.
According to a relevant report by Boris Tongxin, the survey data of medical services for patients insured by the national basic medical insurance shows that in 2017, 7,710 varieties of drugs were actually used by children patients under 14 years old, of which only 610 varieties were suitable for children, accounting for only 7.91%.
A survey of 216 clinicians and 26 clinical pharmacists in general hospitals, children’s specialty hospitals or other medical institutions across the mainland in 2020 showed that 84% of clinical experts generally felt that there was a large shortage of children’s medications. Clinical experts’ views on the main problems in the process of children’s clinical medication are focused on: insufficient variety of children-specific drugs, insufficient suitable dosage forms for children, difficulties in accurate dosing, and poor compliance with children’s medication.
Chen Yongfa, a professor at the International Pharmaceutical Business School of the Chinese Communist University of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said that the demand for children’s drugs is very special and involves diverse drug varieties, dosage forms and specifications. However, 69.7% of the pediatric-specific drugs are solid formulations; 48.7% are tablets, honey pills and capsules that are not suitable for children to take.
A mother of a 2-year-old child, Ms. Zhao, complained: “Many drugs are bitter, and children vomit when they drink them. Most of the Medicine like capsules and tablets can only be broken or ground, and then roughly divided into a proportion to the child, it is difficult to control the dose, and in this way, the entrance of the medicine may become more bitter, but also may not be sanitary.”
Some industry insiders said that the incomplete specifications and few dosage forms for children’s medication have resulted in the clinical necessity of splitting adult dosage forms and specifications for children, resulting in a series of problems such as reduced efficacy, inaccurate dosage and contaminated medication.
The report said that the reason why the mainland adapted to the child-specific drugs less, behind the main issue is the economic interests.
The survey shows that although the size of the market for children-specific drugs is rising year by year, but did not attract manufacturers to compete. From the feedback of enterprises, 71% of them think it is difficult to research and develop, and the cost of variety development is high from the aspects of economic benefits, indications, clinical dosage, technical difficulties, encouragement policies, intellectual property protection and dosage forms.
Yang Jie, president of Dain Pharmaceutical Group, said in this regard that the production process of children’s drugs is often more demanding than that of adult drugs, and the small size of the process is complicated, while most children’s drugs add corrective agents due to the requirements of taste, which is also an additional cost. In addition, children’s common diseases are often seasonal, in the low incidence of Time, production lines idle, amortization costs increase, not as large as the adult drug market, and different drugs for each age group and only available for children’s use of special dosage forms, specifications of drugs make the market too refined, the market size is limited, coupled with no advantage in pricing, resulting in many companies are reluctant to invest financial resources or energy in research and development.
The CCP does not give preferential policies to enterprises in terms of tax relief and extended protection period for children’s drugs, resulting in a long R&D cycle with low profits and insufficient incentives for enterprises to conduct R&D.
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