The National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) has conducted its preliminary review of 557 drugs for inclusion in the national basic medical insurance drug list, while another 54 have been provisionally approved for the commercial health insurance drug catalogue, reported the China Daily.
The administration received 818 applications this year covering 674 generic drug names, an increase of 100 applications and 41 generic drug names from the previous year.
According to the administration, the overall pass rate for the preliminary review reached 92% this year. The majority of the declared varieties are newly developed drugs, and a total of 343 drugs approved over the past five years are new medications.
China updates its basic medical insurance drug list annually to expand coverage of essential medicines, including treatments for cancer, chronic diseases, rare diseases and paediatric conditions. In 2025, the country introduced the inaugural commercial health insurance drug catalogue, aimed at covering innovative, high-cost therapies.
The preliminary review is one of the initial steps toward inclusion in the insurance list as the process is followed by expert evaluations and drug price negotiations, with the final list of newly added drugs typically released toward the end of the year.