(Draft for comment, to be submitted on April 9, 2014 for discussion at the CEO roundtable of Pharmaceutical Industry during the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2014)

Pharmaceutical products are essentials for people’s disease prevention, rehabilitation and healthcare, and pharmaceutical industry is one of the most important industries vital to people’s livelihood. According to the 2012 White Paper of Medical and Health Services in China, the health of the Chinese people is now among the top in developing countries; in 2010, the life expectancy was 74.8 years, recording a substantial increase compared to 67.9 years in 1981; the maternal mortality rate went down from 51.3 per 100,000 in 2002 to 26.1 per 100,000 in 2011; the infant mortality rate have been reduced from 29.2 per thousand in 2002 to 12.1 per thousand in 2011. China’s continuous development of healthcare undertaking and ongoing improvement of the people’s health are closely related to and indispensable with the efforts and contributions of the pharmaceutical industry.

Healthy development of the pharmaceutical industry is of great significance to people’s life, health and quality of life as well as the social stability and economic development. To this end, Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2014 is inviting the leading domestic and foreign pharmaceutical companies to attend this CEO Roundtable of pharmaceutical industry. The conference aims to discuss how the pharmaceutical industry and pharmaceutical companies should develop and act against the background of emergence of individual commercial bribery events in the industry. According to the conference, the pharmaceutical industry and pharmaceutical companies should be highly self-regulated, strictly comply with the law, and continue to standardize their production, operation and other relevant activities; on this basis, the government authorities should also create and maintain a good ecological environment to provide the outstanding and law-abiding pharmaceutical companies with more opportunities for development and enable them to better fulfill their social responsibilities. Through in-depth discussion between and among the participants, the Conference hereby reaches the following consensus and puts forward the following initiatives.

1.        All members within the pharmaceutical community should follow the ethical standards, laws and regulations, both international and domestic, applicable to the pharmaceutical industry

The conference calls on all the stakeholders in the pharmaceutical industry to follow the principle of “focusing on health care and patient and insisting on honesty, independence, legitimacy, transparency and responsibility”, in order to contribute to the effective protection of people’s life and health as well as the promotion of healthy and sustainable development of national and global pharmaceutical industry.

All pharmaceutical companies should uphold a high degree of social responsibility, take the initiative to comply with and implement the provisions of laws and regulations concerning drug regulation of the home country and other relevant countries, and abide by relevant business ethics; they should also regard patients as focus of work, carry out pharmaceutical R&D, production, operation and other related activities in a honest and law-abiding manner, and ensure the quality of medicines in line with stipulated standards, so as to provide patients with safer and more effective drugs as well as safeguard life and health interests of people.

The pharmaceutical industrial organizations should build and perfect the mechanism of industrial self-discipline, urge the production and operating activities of their members to comply with related ethical moral principles, laws and regulations.

2.        Governments of all countries should create an ecological environment beneficial to the development of the pharmaceutical industry

The Conference proposes the following initiatives: all governments should, by improving the systems and mechanisms of all aspects and links including drug R&D, production, operation, procurement, payment and usage and insisting on strict law enforcement and administration according to law, establish an ecological environment in their home country and among different countries which is fair, equitable and beneficial to the development of medical innovation, protect the legitimate rights and interests of business-ethics-compliant enterprises, and promote the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries’ patient-focused awareness social responsibility senses.

In order to promote necessary continuous medical teaching and improve the medical service level and ability of the medical staffs, the conference advocates the government to encourage the pharmaceutical industrial organizations, pharmaceutical companies, medical institutions, and medical professionals related guilds to cooperate on the aspect of medical education.

3.        Enhancing communication and understanding between the government and the pharmaceutical industry

The Conference advocates giving full play to the role of relevant industry organizations to establish a platform for dialogue between the pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical companies and government authorities, so as to create communication opportunities and enhance the mutual communication and relationship. The pharmaceutical industry, governments and industry organizations should all make their own efforts to improve relevant administration systems, optimize the ecological environment of pharmaceutical industry and ultimately promote the long-term healthy development of the pharmaceutical industry and improve people’ health.