The General Office of the State Council, China's Cabinet, recently issued a document on reforming and improving policies in the supply and usage of generic drugs, which aims to further encourage research and development of generic drugs in China.

The document points out that reforming and improving the supply and usage policy of generic drugs relates to people's health as well as the healthy development of China's medical industry.

The government will encourage the development of generic drugs, improve the quality of drugs, introduce supporting policies, promote supply side structural reform in the medical industry, in order to reduce the public's medical costs, meet the public's health demands and promote the construction of a healthy China.

According to the document, the medical authority should regularly publish lists of generic drugs in need, bring related research projects into national plans, and improve the current protection system for intellectual property rights.

The document requires that the quality and efficiency of generic drugs should be supervised and improved, and it also calls for more policy support to expedite the process of putting more high-quality generic drugs into clinical use.

From 2011 to 2015, 323"innovative" drugs were approved for clinical research and 139 new generic drugs entered the market in China.