On September 22, the fourth stop of the national roadshow series, the South China special session on "Real-World Pharmacoeconomics Research," was successfully held at the Conference Center of Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen. Nearly one hundred delegates, including health economics scholars from domestic universities, medical insurance policy review experts, clinical and pharmacy specialists from leading hospitals, senior pharmacoeconomics researchers, pharmaceutical company clinical and market access leaders, as well as R&D and industry media professionals from innovative drug companies in the South China region, gathered to engage in in-depth discussions on topics such as policy directions for real-world studies in medical insurance and the integration of Real-World Studies (RWS) with Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR).
Framing the Topic with "Evidence": From Consensus Promotion to Real-World Value Exploration
Dr. Zhang Shiqin, serving as the event initiator and organizer representative, hosted the opening session and extended a warm welcome and heartfelt gratitude to the attending guests, scholars, and pharmaceutical industry peers. He recalled that a year ago, Boyayuan successfully held a special seminar on the "Expert Consensus on Clinical Trials Integrated with Pharmacoeconomics" at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Convention Center. Over the past year, the national medical insurance administration has issued multiple policy documents concerning real-world studies, with Real-World Evidence (RWE) playing an increasingly critical role in drug value assessment and medical insurance market access, marking significant shifts in industry practice scenarios. Based on this, the theme of this national roadshow has been upgraded to "Real-World Pharmacoeconomics Research," aiming to extend the research perspective from clinical trials to real-world clinical settings, exploring how real-world data can be transformed into credible value evidence that responds to the practical demands of policy, clinical practice, and industry.
Authoritative Addresses: Disciplinary Value Highly Recognized, Greater Bay Area Holds Great Promise
Professor Liu Guoen, Dean of the Institute for Global Health and Development at Peking University, delivered the opening address. He stated that the roadshow on real-world pharmacoeconomics research will effectively promote the popularization and implementation of health economics concepts and methods, and welcomed the representatives from the Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission and Shenzhen Medical Insurance Bureau attending the meeting. Professor Liu systematically compared the fundamental differences between Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) and Real-World Evidence from the perspective of pharmaceutical R&D processes, emphasizing the significant role of pharmacoeconomics in exploring value within real-world research. He pointed out that as the Greater Bay Area serves as China's economic engine and a pilot region for national real-world research policies, the discipline of pharmacoeconomics should lead the nation's development. He encouraged the discipline to combine methodological rigor with practical application and expressed hopes for its substantial progress within the region.
Professor Feng Zijian from the School of Public Health and Emergency Management at Southern University of Science and Technology delivered a welcome address. He expressed gratitude for having the tour stop at the university and fully affirmed the disciplinary contributions and value of pharmacoeconomics from a public health development perspective. He noted that public health construction is a massive systemic project. Facing growing medical expenditures, health economics can, from a resource allocation standpoint, coordinate the distribution and rational use of health resources. He also expressed hopes for the discipline to take root at Southern University of Science and Technology, contributing to the development of its public health school.
Keynote Presentations: A Two-Way Convergence of Methodological Frontiers and Medical Insurance Logic
In the keynote presentation session, two speakers delivered talks combining theoretical depth and cutting-edge methodology. Professor Niu Ben, Executive Dean of the Shenzhen Medical Insurance Research Institute at Shenzhen University, presented on "Policy Directions, Applications, and Evaluation Logic of Real-World Studies in Medical Insurance." He systematically reviewed the evolution of medical insurance policy development and implementation, from policy trajectories and the continuous refinement of payment pricing and regulatory policies, to pilot practices in value assessment using real-world studies. He noted that with technological advancement, AI-assisted data governance and evidence generation are efficiently enhancing the processing and decision-making capabilities of medical insurance data. He further proposed a "CAS+LHS" dual-cycle medical insurance policy evaluation system, using the case study "Real-World Effects of DRG Reform: Evidence from Causal Machine Learning on Coronary Heart Disease PCI Patients" to deeply analyze the real-world impact of DRG reform.
Associate Professor Jiang Yawen from the School of Pharmacy at Sun Yat-sen University delivered a presentation titled "How Real-World Evidence Supports Health Technology Assessment and Drug Market Access and Payment." Starting with a comparison between RCTs and real-world studies, she outlined the main application scenarios where Real-World Evidence serves market access and payment decisions. She analyzed application pathways for real-world research, drawing on US medical claims data and evaluation cases based on local Shenzhen data. She emphasized that real-world results serve to match parameter alignment, constituting a key element in building high-quality health economic decision models and supporting medical insurance access. The credibility of HEOR models heavily depends on the degree of alignment among input parameters. Only through research design, mining real-world data sources, localizing core parameters, and ultimately establishing health economics models can higher-quality value evidence be generated.
Panel Discussion: Multidimensional Deliberation Sparks New Industry Solutions
The panel discussion was a highlight of the conference. Professor Zhang Tiantian from the School of Pharmacy at Southern Medical University moderated the session. The discussion revolved around topics such as "How to Convert Real-World Data into Pharmacoeconomic Value," "Differentiated Evidence Requirements Between Medical Insurance and Hospitals," and "How Real-World Evidence Influences Medical Insurance Pricing Decisions for Innovative Drugs." Experts from credible evaluation pilot hospitals, university research institutes, medical insurance management departments, and drug development sectors engaged in multidimensional deliberation based on their professional experiences.
Professor Yu Guangjun, Vice Dean of the School of Medicine at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, pointed out that rationally leveraging AI tools for effective hospital data governance, promoting progressive public disclosure of medical insurance data, and standardizing the use of health economics analysis tools are future directions for implementing real-world research in hospital settings. Dr. Li Xinxu, Chief Statistical Scientist at Boji Medical, speaking from a regulatory review perspective and using rare disease and traditional Chinese medicine cases, noted that regulatory authorities maintain a cautious attitude towards the use of real-world data. The generation of real-world evidence from clinical use requires multiple layers of process design. He endorsed "clinical trials integrated with pharmacoeconomics research" as a scientific method for quantifying the clinical value of drugs.
As a representative from Shenzhen among the 79 national credible evaluation pilot hospitals, Director Cheng Lixin of the Health and Medical Big Data Center at Shenzhen People's Hospital introduced the hospital's medical data management experience, which uses big data-based case characteristics combined with algorithm advantages to accurately predict patient disease risks, exploring data center applications for real-world research. Director Xu Chang from the Smart Hospital Research Institute at Peking University Shenzhen Hospital proposed new ideas from dimensions of medical quality, patient benefit, and scientific evaluation. He emphasized that the scale and quality of hospital data form the research foundation. Disease-specific studies need to align with DRG payment models and use standardized pharmacoeconomic methods to quantify the multidimensional value of real-world research. Associate Professor Lin Tengfei from the School of Pharmacy at Southern Medical University pointed out that real-world evidence can assist innovative drugs in gaining advantages and pricing benefits during medical insurance reviews, representing tangible cash gains for companies. However, medical insurance access is merely the starting point for market entry. Continuously conducting clinical value monitoring and pharmacoeconomic research is a necessary condition for the full lifecycle management of pharmaceutical products.
Q&A Interaction: Evidence Acceptance Under the Medical Insurance Perspective and Local Practices
During the Q&A session, Director Chen Hailiang from the Dapeng Sub-bureau of the Shenzhen Medical Insurance Bureau, drawing on the recent evolution of national medical insurance policies, elaborated on the dual functional positioning of the bureau as both a livelihood department and an economic department from the perspective of its social functional division. He proposed concepts of relative value, long-term value, and systemic value for drugs from a medical insurance management viewpoint, and outlined the gradual implementation process of medical insurance policy support for real-world research. He noted that for drugs to achieve national-level policy transformation, multi-center data collection points across at least three provinces are currently required. Subsequently, drawing on his experience as a member of Shenzhen's real-world research special team, he detailed the responsibilities of the Shenzhen Medical Insurance Bureau. Shenzhen has three hospitals among the 79 national credible evaluation pilots. Additionally, Shenzhen has selected 19 municipal-level pilot hospitals, providing substantial support for clinical evidence mining and data supplementation for products. Regarding evidence mining for products, the Shenzhen Medical Insurance Bureau is promoting the establishment of a systematic credible space. At this stage, companies can leverage the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area International Clinical Trial Center or hospitals to carry out projects, use medical insurance data to generate relevant evidence, and progressively explore the openness and sharing of medical data.
Summary and Outlook: Building an Evidence-Based Bridge in South China, the Roadshow Marches On
Concluding the conference, Director Deng Xijin from the Pharmaceutical Affairs Division of the Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission delivered closing remarks. He highly praised the national roadshow series and fully affirmed the outcomes of the Shenzhen session, believing that the conference comprehensively reviewed and validated the core value of pharmacoeconomics in the field of real-world research and full lifecycle pharmaceutical management. He pointed out that Guangzhou is actively supporting the exploration of real-world research, with health research directions focusing on data mining across the "three-medicine linkage" (medical treatment, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals), prioritizing applications in biopharmaceuticals and traditional Chinese medicine R&D. He expressed expectations for academia to continuously drive innovation in related disciplines, produce more research outcomes adapted to domestic medical scenarios, and contribute to the high-quality development of health services in Guangdong and the nation.
The successful convening of this symposium brought together professional strengths from medical insurance and regulatory authorities, leading hospitals, university research institutes, and pharmaceutical industry companies. It continues to break down long-standing communication barriers between policy, clinical practice, academia, and industry, building a high-quality evidence-based exchange bridge in the South China region. The entire conference conducted in-depth discussions on common industry pain points, including real-world data governance, mutual recognition of evidence from credible pilots, medical insurance review acceptance rules, and the integrated implementation of RWS and pharmacoeconomics. It provided clear and feasible practical pathways for medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies in Shenzhen and the broader South China region to conduct standardized real-world research and establish complete drug value evaluation systems.
The national roadshow continues. Looking ahead, the tour will proceed to the East China and North China regions, continuing to deepen its focus on the core track of integrating RWS medical insurance policy directions with HEOR applications, building a nationwide, regularly operating academic exchange platform for pharmaceutical evidence. The series remains committed to its core mission of "data-driven value, evidence-empowered tri-medicine coordination," leveraging cross-regional expert resource sharing, typical case exchange, and synchronized policy interpretation to continuously support the full lifecycle evidence strategy for pharmaceutical products.