THE Shenzhen Municipal Health, Population and Family Planning Commission made public announcements Monday in response to a notice issued by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) against the city’s pharmaceutical group.

    According to the notice, the NDRC had found that the pharmaceutical group had violated the country’s anti-monopoly law by appointing a sole medicine Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) for public hospitals in Shenzhen. Its behavior was defined as “abuse of administrative power as well as exclusion and restriction of competition.”

    An investigation team was set up earlier by the national and Guangdong development and reform commissions to look into the illegal and monopolistic operations conducted by the pharmaceutical group.

    It was uncovered that the pharmaceutical group had only allowed one GPO, known as quanyaowang.com, to provide group purchasing services for the public hospitals in Shenzhen, which excluded other qualified and competitive GPOs.

    The other charge issued by the investigation team was that the Shenzhen health commission only appointed quanyaowang.com as the sole medicine distributor and service provider for the public hospitals and pharmaceutical production corporations in Shenzhen.

    In response to the notice, the Shenzhen Municipal Health, Population and Family Planning Commission replied this week that it had already taken measures to correct its misconduct in December last year, and that the measures were approved by the investigation team.

    The improvement measures included ensuring that public hospitals could choose their own qualified GPOs, distribution companies and pharmaceutical production corporations. Since the measures were taken, two batches of medicine have been purchased under the new regulations, the commission said.

    (Zhang Qian)