China Opens Bids in 7th Medical Consumables Procurement

The National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) held the bid-opening for China’s seventh batch of state-organized centralized volume-based procurement of medical consumables in Tianjin on 10 September 2026, selecting 148 companies’ 517 products from a field of 156 firms and 558 products. The batch covers 23 types of digestive-intervention consumables used in endoscopic surgery for digestive-tract diseases, part of China’s continuing push to lower medical supply costs through bulk purchasing.

Context

China’s centralized volume-based procurement (VBP) program aggregates hospitals’ demand nationwide and holds competitive bidding, with winners receiving guaranteed purchase volumes in exchange for substantially lower prices. It has become a central pillar of the country’s healthcare cost-control strategy.

Since 2020, the Xinhua News Agency reports, national-organized consumables procurement has covered 165 types of medical consumables across cardiology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, vascular surgery, ENT, urology, and gastroenterology. Six prior batches addressed high-value categories including coronary stents, artificial joints, orthopedic spine implants, sports medicine items, intraocular lenses, cochlear implants, peripheral vascular stents, drug-coated balloons, and urological intervention devices.

This seventh batch marks a shift toward higher-frequency, lower-unit-cost categories. Rather than targeting a single consumable or procedure stage, it extends coverage to the full digestive-intervention treatment chain, spanning biliary and pancreatic stones, gastrointestinal polyps and tumors, and gastrointestinal bleeding.

Key Developments

Companies began submitting sealed bids at 07:30 local time, with submissions closing at 09:30, according to Xinhua. A public bid-reading session followed. The NHSA said the results showed that mainstream clinically-used products were generally selected.

Among the highest-demand items, an NHSA statement noted that 69 companies bid for stone-retrieval baskets — the category with the most manufacturers — with 64 selected. Injection needles, used more than two million times annually in clinical settings, drew bids from 32 companies. Special-function products such as covered intestinal stents and multi-stage dilation balloon catheters each had multiple winners, reflecting what the agency described as product clinical value.

The NHSA said the batch followed the principles of “stabilizing clinical use, ensuring quality, countering involution, and preventing bid-rigging,” drawing on lessons from the 12th batch of drug procurement. Firms could qualify through direct selection, volume-bearing revival, or a newly added “no-volume revival” option; all products with the highest clinical demand were selected.

A notable rule innovation was a “double-anchor” price-dispersion mechanism, the first use of a statistical dispersion method in Chinese consumables procurement pricing. One price threshold sets the core benchmark for volume eligibility, while a lower red line defines abnormally low bids. Six products triggered the red-line rule, in which winning quota and volume are zeroed out.

Analysis

The seventh batch reflects a deliberate recalibration of how China runs its procurement program, moving away from a pure race to the bottom on price. Product-feature conversion coefficients — such as a 1.15x factor between electrocautery modes for snares, or a 1.5x factor for hemostatic clips usable in perforation treatment versus those for hemostasis alone — mean bids now compare functional value rather than headline price alone.

Domestic and foreign firms displayed divergent strategies, according to an analysis by financial outlet Cailianshe. Domestic manufacturers such as Micro-Tech (688029.SH), Anjiesi (688581.SH), and Weidekang, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed Medcaptain (02041.HK), won multiple first-round selections in the highest-demand items, including hemostatic clips and electrocautery snares. Foreign firms including Boston Scientific, Olympus, and Cook Medical participated actively but split on whether to chase volume or defend price, with some cutting prices for share and others holding price and forfeiting volume.

Jiang Bin, deputy director of the Peking University Public Policy Research Center, told Cailianshe that the reform’s goal “is not to force firms to cut reasonable profits, but to reduce operating costs and pass savings into prices.” Lu Yun, director of the China Pharmaceutical University Medical Price Research Center, said the batch expands procurement from single consumables toward whole-system coverage, helping transmit per-item price cuts to overall treatment costs.

Shen Yunzhi, director of hepatobiliary surgery at Tianjin Third Central Hospital, said the hospital’s domestic-to-imported ratio in digestive-intervention consumables was roughly 50/50 before the batch and that domestic share is expected to grow — though import substitution remains a gradual process requiring physician habit change.

What’s Next

The selected results will be publicly announced soon and are expected to take effect in January 2027, with the procurement cycle running through 31 December 2029. The NHSA said it will guide regional authorities and hospitals through production, supply, contract-signing, and online procurement to ensure patients access quality, affordable products promptly.