China's top price watchdog has launched a probe into rampantly soaring prices for medicines that have been newly listed in the country's socialized medicine catalog, The Beijing News reports.

An unnamed official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said Thursday that the agency would check the costs of the medicines and require drugmakers to lower their prices to the previous levels if unreasonable hikes were found.

"Makers should stick to the original market prices before the government sets the guiding prices for the recently listed medicines," the official was quoted as saying. "Random hikes are strictly banned."

The official's remarks came after a China Youth Daily report revealed that the prices of more than 30 medicines had shot up by more than 80 percent after they were listed in the new medicine directory released in late 2009.

The new directory, compiled by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, included more than 2,000 medicines, 260 of which were newly indexed compared with the 2004 version.

In China, buyers are partly or fully reimbursed for the cost of catalog-listed medicines that are sold under price caps set by the NDRC based on market prices.

But some pharmaceutical industry insiders said the interval between the publication of the catalog and the release of the final prices, which were conducted by two separate departments, left enough time for drugmakers to raise prices.

The China Youth Daily report said manufacturers could increase the prices only after the medicines were indexed and the NDRC had inspected the market afterwards and set price caps based on market prices that had already been increased.

The NDRC has been planning for a new medicine pricing system, including a cost list for medicines, to curb the random price hikes and offer a reference guide for the pricing of the catalog-listed medicines.

(CRIENGLISH.com June 19, 2010)