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This report (chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Wang Yu and Yu Na reported from Beijing
As a hot-selling traditional Chinese medicine with annual sales exceeding 2 billion yuan outside hospitals, and also a &#34;sleeping drug&#34; with zero procurement in hospitals for two consecutive years, Beijing Tongrentang An Gong Niu Huang Wan has recently fallen into a whirlpool of public opinion.
Recently, the Shanxi Provincial Public Resources Trading Platform announced the formal cancellation of the online qualification for 118 drugs from 47 pharmaceutical production and operation enterprises, covering various categories including chemical drugs and traditional Chinese medicine. This well-known time-honored product was removed from the online qualification due to no transactions in hospitals for two years and is facing a two-year ban.
With annual sales of 2 billion yuan but being cleared by medical insurance, this stark contrast reflects the industry chaos of high-priced traditional Chinese medicine being &#34;listed but unsold, exclusively supplied outside hospitals.&#34; These drugs have long occupied procurement platform resources and disrupted market price order. In recent years, provinces such as Shandong, Guangdong, Sichuan, Jilin, and Hunan have simultaneously initiated similar clean-up efforts, triggering a nationwide wave of &#34;sleeping drug&#34; clearance, pushing drug procurement back to the essence of clinical needs.
Cutting into &#34;Sleeping Drugs&#34;
In the pharmaceutical circulation field, the online qualification of drugs is equivalent to a &#34;ticket&#34; to enter public hospitals. Once lost, it means being excluded from the public medical institution procurement system.
In August 2023, the National Medical Insurance Administration issued a document clarifying that drugs with no transactions for two consecutive years or more should be transferred to &#34;inactive management.&#34; The detailed rules issued by the Shanxi Provincial Medical Insurance Department indicate that drugs with no procurement for two consecutive calendar years will have their online qualifications directly revoked, with a two-year ban set, during which they cannot reapply. This rule is not unique to Shanxi but is a local strict implementation under the national medical insurance cost control framework. Most provinces across the country have established mechanisms for clearing inactive drugs, with only slight differences in enforcement: places like Shandong and Jiangsu often adopt measures such as suspending online listings or hiding displays, while Shanxi directly implements &#34;removal + ban,&#34; with stricter regulatory standards.
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The removal of drugs in Shanxi was triggered by multiple reasons, not just the core issue of &#34;two years without transactions.&#34; It also includes factors such as production and sales suspension, non-collective procurement selected packaging, and production supply issues. In addition to Beijing Tongrentang An Gong Niu Huang Wan, many well-known drugs were also cleared, such as Darentang Xi Huang Wan, which was similarly included in the removal list due to long-term lack of hospital transactions; additionally, it involves auxiliary drugs from many well-known enterprises and niche drugs with extremely low clinical usage rates.
These cleared drugs mostly share common problems: pharmaceutical companies only apply for online listing to seize channel quotas, but do not actually supply or promote, occupying platform resources for a long time, raising procurement management costs, squeezing the survival space of low-priced essential drugs, and even becoming &#34;sleeping product specifications&#34; that disrupt market bidding
The nationwide centralized clearance is a key step in the transformation of medical insurance procurement from &#34;emphasizing access&#34; to &#34;emphasizing effectiveness,&#34; completely breaking the industry's stubborn issue of &#34;only entering but not exiting&#34; for drug listings.
Price Fluctuations of An Gong Niu Huang Wan
As a flagship product in the field of traditional Chinese medicine, An Gong Niu Huang Wan is known as the &#34;emergency holy medicine.&#34; With the backing of the century-old brand Tong Ren Tang and the support of scarce raw materials, it has become a high-priced bestseller in the outpatient market and a core revenue pillar for Tong Ren Tang.
From the market performance perspective, Tong Ren Tang's An Gong Niu Huang Wan has consistently ranked first in both sales volume and sales revenue in its category, firmly occupying a dominant market position: According to statistics from pharmaceutical data platforms such as Yimainet and Zhongkang CMH, the total terminal sales of An Gong Niu Huang Wan for the years 2023, 2024, and 2025 are projected to be 5.1 billion, 4.5 billion, and 5 billion yuan, respectively. Among them, the combined market share of the two main entities of Beijing Tong Ren Tang (Tong Ren Tang Co., Ltd. and Tong Ren Tang Technology) exceeds 50%, which is over 2 billion yuan, firmly maintaining the industry's top position.
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In terms of price, Tong Ren Tang's An Gong Niu Huang Wan can be regarded as the &#34;price benchmark&#34; in the retail market. In 2012, its single pill retail price was significantly raised from 350 yuan to 560 yuan, an increase of over 60%; at the end of 2019, the company announced another price adjustment, raising the single pill price to 780 yuan; by the end of 2021, the product saw another round of price increases, with the single pill retail price fixed at 860 yuan. Over the past decade, this drug has seen a cumulative increase of over 145%, with prices rising 2.5 times, far exceeding the overall price increase level in the pharmaceutical industry.
As a super product with annual sales of 2 billion yuan, why has Tong Ren Tang's An Gong Niu Huang Wan faced a two-year trading freeze in hospitals? Shi Tianyi, a senior consultant at Hejun Consulting, told the reporter from Huaxia Times that this is a result of the multiple games of medical insurance control, hospital operations, and corporate strategies. Firstly, medical insurance reimbursement is strictly limited; the 2024 version of the national medical insurance catalog clearly stipulates that An Gong Niu Huang Wan can only be reimbursed for emergency hospitalized patients, and the high-end version using dual natural (natural cow bile and natural musk) raw materials is not covered by medical insurance, leading to insufficient prescription motivation from hospitals; secondly, the DRG/DIP payment reform forces hospitals to control costs, and high-priced traditional Chinese medicines will occupy the medical insurance quota of departments, increasing hospital operating costs, prompting medical institutions to actively avoid procurement; thirdly, companies actively abandon hospital channels, as the outpatient market has pricing freedom and higher profit margins, with pharmaceutical companies only retaining listing qualifications to maintain brand image, without actual supply, to avoid low-priced impacts on the high-priced outpatient system; fourthly, clinical positioning has narrowed, as emergency medications in hospitals often choose more cost-effective alternatives, further compressing their survival space.
From an industry impact perspective, the withdrawal from listings has significantly differentiated effects on different companies. For small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies, if core products are cleared, it often means losing access to the regional public market, leading to significant performance pressure; while for leading enterprises with diversified channel layouts, the impact of withdrawal from hospital listings on a single product specification is limited
The relevant person in charge of Beijing Tongrentang also told a reporter from Huaxia Times that due to the &#34;dual natural&#34; property of An Gong Niu Huang Wan, it cannot be covered by medical insurance, so the sales volume within hospitals is very small, and thus the withdrawal from online sales will not affect the company's performance.
However, Shi Tianyi stated that while the short-term performance is unaffected, in the long term, it will weaken the &#34;medicinal&#34; property of Tongrentang's An Gong Niu Huang Wan. The withdrawal from online sales has solidified the fact that there are &#34;no transactions within hospitals,&#34; which, although it does not affect current retail, cuts off the authority of &#34;hospital endorsement.&#34; In the long run, if it completely loses clinical access qualifications, the brand may shift from &#34;emergency medicine&#34; to &#34;health products,&#34; undermining its credibility.
This nationwide drug clearance action is by no means a simple channel rectification. This initiative, from cleaning up dormant drugs, eliminating inefficient supply, to strictly controlling waste of medical insurance funds, guiding rational drug use, and forcing the pharmaceutical industry to improve quality and efficiency, is an important sign of the refinement and standardization of medical insurance reform

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Beijing Tongrentang's An Gong Niu Huang Wan has annual sales exceeding 2 billion yuan, but it was disqualified from the online procurement list in Shanxi Province due to not being purchased in hospitals for two consecutive years, facing a two-year ban. This incident reflects the chaos in the market regarding high-priced traditional Chinese medicine, leading to a nationwide wave of withdrawal of "sleeping drugs." The National Medical Insurance Administration stipulates that if online drugs have no transactions for two consecutive years, they will be transferred to inactive management, and Shanxi Province's measures are even stricter, directly revoking online procurement qualifications and imposing a ban

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TRT's annual sales of 2 billion yuan "miracle drug" has been withdrawn, why is there no one buying An Gong Niu Huang Wan in the hospital?