Policy & Market · China
China begins national VBP groundwork for digestive intervention devices — esophageal, intestinal and biliary stents included
China's national high-value medical consumable procurement office has opened historical-procurement data reporting for four device categories. The digestive intervention category explicitly includes esophageal, intestinal, biliary and pancreatic stents — the standard precursor to a national volume-based procurement (VBP) round.
What happened
The National Organization for Joint Procurement of High-Value Medical Consumables has issued a notice launching historical-procurement data reporting for four categories of medical consumables — digestive intervention, orthopedic spine, intraocular lens (IOL), and sports medicine. The work is carried out under the eight-ministry Guiding Opinions on National Organized Centralized Volume-Based Procurement and Use of High-Value Medical Consumables (Yibaofa [2021] No. 31), with the goal of mapping actual usage ahead of centralized volume-based procurement.
What's in scope for digestive intervention
For the digestive intervention category, the scope covers consumables holding a China (NMPA) medical device registration certificate, including — among others:
- Stents: esophageal stents, intestinal (enteral) stents, biliary stents, pancreatic-duct stents
- Balloon dilation catheters: cardia, esophageal, intestinal and biliary balloon dilation catheters; biliary-pancreatic stone-retrieval balloon catheters
- Other: biliary-pancreatic catheters, digestive guidewires, retrieval baskets, variceal/tissue ligators, hemorrhoid ligators, snares (polypectomy), biopsy and hot-biopsy forceps, foreign-body and hemostasis forceps, endoscopic clip systems, injection needles, tissue knives, and more
Who reports, and how
Public medical institutions (including military medical institutions) that used any of the four consumable categories during 2025 and January–May 2026 are required to participate; designated private institutions are encouraged to join. Hospitals self-report through the National Healthcare Security Information Platform (fuwu.nhsa.gov.cn → "Drug and Medical Consumable Procurement Services" → national high-value consumable centralized procurement reporting).
Each institution reports its historical procurement data for 2025 and Jan–May 2026 — historical unit prices and corresponding volumes, specific to model/specification — and must upload a stamped document jointly signed by the institution's Party secretary and president. Submissions are then reviewed in turn by municipal and provincial healthcare security departments.
Timeline
- Hospital reporting: June 16 – 25, 2026 (by 17:00)
- Municipal review deadline: June 26, 2026, 12:00
- Provincial submission deadline: June 26, 2026, 17:00
What it signals
Historical-procurement data reporting is the standard first step of China's national VBP process: regulators establish real-world usage and pricing before moving to bidding and selected-product pricing. Its inclusion of esophageal, intestinal and biliary stents indicates that digestive system stents are now squarely within the national VBP pipeline. For manufacturers, distributors and hospitals, the practical implications are to tighten model/specification catalogs, ensure registration and pricing records are clean, and plan for the procurement cadence that typically follows.
BIO (Maifa) follows centralized-procurement developments across high-value device categories as part of supporting partners in China's medical device market.
Note: this is a summary of a public policy notice for industry information; details and timing are subject to the official documents of the National Joint Procurement Office and provincial healthcare security departments.
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