The price of the drugs will be set at auctions, in which pharmaceuticals companies from the West can also take part. Although companies that submit a winning bid will need to sell their medications at a fixed price, they will also gain access to all hospitals nationwide, and thus to completely new sales channels. The government hopes that this will prompt pharmaceuticals companies to expand their sales networks in rural areas as well. Merck Serono is already planning to take such a step. "We want to double our sales network by spreading it to 120 cities by the end of 2010," says Sui.

The reform will also benefit traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Although Western doctors are often skeptical about this distinctive system of medicine, whose origins reach back about 6,000 years, TCM has also become quite popular in Europe and the U.S. Among the best-known TCM treatments are acupuncture and Shiatsu massage. In addition, TCM employs medications made from plants.

China has been strongly promoting TCM since the 1950s and making it a major component of the country’s healthcare system. The holistic treatment methods and the doctors who employ TCM principles continue to be highly respected among the population. "That’s why many hospitals combine TCM methods with those of Western medicine," says Sui. "As a result, about half of the medications on the Essential Drug List are TCM remedies."
 
Sui does not think that the current economic crisis will in any way derail the reform's success, since China’s gross domestic product (GDP) still grew by 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period of 2008. Although this was the slowest growth since China began releasing GDP figures in 1992, the government expects the GDP to grow by eight percent during the year as a whole. Western industrialized countries can only dream of such growth rates at the moment.