Only three months after its launch, Hengrui Medicine's IL-17A monoclonal antibody Funaqizumab has reduced its price.

On December 2, the Jiangsu Provincial Public Resources Trading Center issued an announcement that the online prices of some drugs were adjusted, among which the price of Funaqizumab was reduced from 1,986 yuan per vial to 860 yuan, a reduction of more than 56%.

As Funaqizumab has only been on the market for three months, Hengrui Medicine has chosen to reduce its price, which is rare. Of course, it is understandable that Funaqizumab was approved in August and failed to catch up with this year's medical insurance negotiations, and faced considerable pressure.

In China, Sicuzumab is one of the most innovative drugs that actively embraces medical insurance negotiations. Its successive price cuts have broken the limitations of the autoimmune drug market. In May this year, Novartis said that Secukinumab has covered more than 500,000 patients in China, with 200,000 new patients in the past year, so it is hailed as a miracle in the domestic autoimmune market.

Under this logic, as a latecomer, domestic innovative drugs will undoubtedly need to find a way to break through in terms of price. Hengrui Medicine's proactive price reduction can also be regarded as a passive response.

This is not only a story in the field of IL-17A monoclonal antibodies. In the domestic autoimmune market, imported drugs basically choose to embrace medical insurance to occupy a position. Therefore, in order to stage a story of domestic substitution, domestic pharmaceutical companies may need to go further in commercialization strategy.

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