Group chairperson Li Zhenjiang said the retail price for a 20 milliliter injection of Chinese goldthread rhizome extract is 1.8 yuan (US$0.29), while the production costs are almost double that.
The largest listed TCM company on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has had to shut down its Chinese goldthread injection factory in Chengdu due to losses, the magazine reported.
Shineway has also cut the output of isatis root extract — used to make a medicinal tea — and has stopped production on Huoxiang Zhengqi Shui, a liquefied Chinese herbal medicine compound used in the regulation of the digestive system, due to the skyrocketing prices of raw materials, according to the report.
Three hundred and forty-two basic kinds of medicine have gradually disappeared from the market, according to a study conducted in 42 hospitals in 12 cities on the mainland.
In mid-February, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology set six major goals for 2014, one of which was to designate pilot zones for producing basic medicine to secure the supply of cheap drugs, a move which suggests that the production of cheap medicine had become a national challenge, the magazine said.
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