On July 25th, the second stop of the "Boya Hui - Evidence-Based China Tour" national symposium, titled "Real-World Pharmacoeconomic Evaluation," was successfully held in Kunming. As a key thematic unit of the West China Pharmacoeconomics and Pharmaceutical Policy Annual Conference, the event gathered experts from medical insurance regulation, university research, tertiary hospital pharmacy, clinical diagnosis and treatment, and the pharmaceutical industry. It facilitated comprehensive, in-depth discussions on new national real-world research policies, the integration of RWS and HEOR, and regional pharmaceutical innovation practices, establishing a professional exchange platform connecting government, academia, industry, and healthcare. The symposium provided a clear practical pathway for the standardized application of real-world evidence in the Southwest region.
Opening Remarks: Anchoring the Tour's Mission and Building a Comprehensive Evidence-Based Exchange Platform
The meeting began with Dr. Zhang Shiqin as the host. He introduced the background of the "Boya Hui - Evidence-Based China Tour" Kunming symposium and the "Expert Consensus on Clinical Trial-Embedded Pharmacoeconomic Evaluation" topic. Citing multiple supporting policy documents for real-world research issued by the National Healthcare Security Administration in early 2026, he outlined the three core objectives of the national tour: first, to uncover innovative medical insurance policy measures and accurately deconstruct the implementation details and pathways of top-level policies; second, to promote cross-regional academic exchange by sharing mature real-world research cases and standardized operational methods; and third, to advance the industrial application of pharmacoeconomics, unlocking the value chain from real-world data to evidence-based research and the pharmaceutical industry.
He proposed that leveraging the integrated advantages of Real-World Studies (RWS) and Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) can help pharmaceutical companies fill evidence gaps in their pipelines, optimize clinical R&D portfolios, and deeply explore the real-world clinical efficacy and long-term health economic value of drugs. Simultaneously, through a regular exchange platform, it can efficiently connect national academic resources, tertiary clinical resources, and national real-world pilot research channels, ultimately achieving academic progress, resource sharing, and industry win-win outcomes, using evidence-based science to drive high-quality coordinated development of healthcare, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals nationwide.
Organizer's Address: Using Value Assessment to Bridge the Industry-Academia-Research-Clinical Translation Chain
Director Li Fan of the Science and Technology Achievement Transformation Center at Kunming Medical University delivered a welcome address on behalf of the organizers. Director Li stated that the ultimate goal of pharmaceutical technological innovation is to benefit patients, and translating laboratory results into clinical practice requires a standardized, scientific pharmaceutical value assessment system. Pharmacoeconomics is the core tool supporting this measurement.
Pharmacoeconomics balances a drug's clinical efficacy, safety profile, economic cost, and societal benefit, providing critical decision-making support for medical insurance formulary access, drug pricing management, and rational clinical drug use in hospitals. This meeting focused on the practical application of real-world data in pharmacoeconomic evaluation, offering new ideas and operational methodologies for Yunnan to deepen the "Industry-Academia-Research-Clinical" integration channel and accelerate the journey of pharmaceutical scientific achievements from the lab to the clinic and market. Director Li concluded by welcoming the attending experts and colleagues and wishing the symposium fruitful results.
Keynote Address: Forward-Looking Deployment of New Opportunities in Real-World Research
Professor Liu Guoen, Dean of the Institute for Global Health and Development at Peking University, served as the conference chair and delivered the opening address. From a macro perspective on domestic pharmaceutical reform and global health economy development, Professor Liu systematically clarified the complete foundational concepts of real-world research and explained the intrinsic logical connections among RWD, RWE, and pharmacoeconomics. He pointed out that as national medical insurance policies continue to transition towards value-based assessment, real-world data has become core material for supporting drug access and clinical management, but raw, fragmented data cannot directly support scientific decision-making.
Professor Liu encouraged medical insurance administrators, clinical pharmacy experts, university scholars, and industry peers present to collaborate in deepening the intersection of real-world research and pharmacoeconomics. He called for establishing a standardized, unified, and credible transformation pathway by connecting the entire process of study design, data quality control, and statistical analysis, efficiently and compliantly converting massive real-world data (RWD) into real-world evidence (RWE) with policy credibility that objectively reflects a drug's comprehensive benefits. He encouraged hospital pharmacy experts and pharmacoeconomics scholars to share their frontline experiences and looked forward to the broad prospects of integrating real-world research and pharmacoeconomics, urging all parties to seize policy opportunities and jointly improve the evidence-based evaluation system.
Keynote Reports: Deconstructing RWS Implementation from Policy Interpretation and Clinical Case Perspectives
During the keynote session, two industry authorities delivered knowledge-packed presentations, garnering an enthusiastic response from the audience.
Ji Wan, Second-Level Inspector of the Yunnan Provincial Medical Security Bureau, explained the application logic of real-world research within the medical insurance system from a governance perspective. She comprehensively reviewed the domestic policy system for RWS comprehensive value assessment in medical insurance, objectively analyzed the current application status of real-world evidence in formulary access, list review, and fund value-based purchasing, and shared regional RWS innovation explorations leveraging Yunnan's local medical resources and ethnic medicine characteristics, providing a clear reference for medical insurance authorities to accept and use real-world evidence.
Director Zhang Jiaxing from the Pharmacy Department of Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital shared insights from a clinical researcher's perspective. He clarified the intrinsic logical relationships among real-world data, real-world studies, and real-world evidence. Using two complete in-hospital case studies, he deeply analyzed the core value, implementation challenges, and optimization pathways for conducting real-world research in medical institutions, offering a replicable, practical model for hospital pharmacy teams to conduct standardized RWS.
Roundtable Discussion: Exploring Pain Points and Solutions for Integrating RWS and Pharmacoeconomics
The core roundtable session, moderated by Professor Sun Lihua from Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, brought together pharmacoeconomics scholars, clinical/medical insurance directors from tertiary hospitals, and pharmaceutical industry value research representatives. The multi-dimensional discussion, focusing on "How to Transform RWD into Pharmacoeconomic Value and Differentiated Evidence Needs of Insurance and Hospitals," generated numerous new industry insights through the clash of ideas:
Associate Professor Zuo Genyong from the School of Public Health, Shandong University, pointed out from a data governance and study design perspective that current medical institutions often have restrictions on external data sharing. After obtaining real-world clinical data, researchers must first complete full-dimensional data identification, cleaning, and quality control, eliminating incomplete, biased, or invalid information. In terms of evidence credibility, prospective cohort studies, with their complete pre-specified protocols and controllable data collection processes, are currently the most scientific study design type with the highest level of evidence for real-world research.
Associate Researcher Tan Jialong from the Dong Fureng Institute of Economic and Social Development at Wuhan University identified three core challenges facing domestic real-world research: uneven data quality, inconsistent methodological standards, and insufficient credibility of research procedures, emphasizing the urgent need for a unified standard system.
Professor Zhang Feng from the Affiliated Hospital of Jiangnan University provided a unique perspective, suggesting that the field of medical foods has significant potential for real-world research, which could be used to address issues like patient malnutrition, extended treatment cycles, and insufficient clinical evidence reserves.
Chief Physician Yang Bo from the First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province acknowledged real-world contradictions, including inconsistent RWS data quality standards, non-uniform research methodologies, and differing perceptions and demands for RWE between medical insurance authorities and medical institutions. Director Xie Yue from the Medical Insurance Office of the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical University, a national real-world pilot unit, shared that medical insurance and hospitals have distinct starting points and focuses when conducting real-world research. She also noted that artificial intelligence is a crucial tool for RWS development, enabling hospitals to use digital tools to optimize operations, improve management of consumables and services, and support coordinated healthcare reform.
Professor Weng Yizhi from Kunming Medical University proposed that conducting real-world research must fully consider the actual development needs of pharmaceutical companies. Leveraging Yunnan's rich ethnic medicine resources to conduct characteristic RWS can deeply explore the unique clinical value of ethnic drugs.
Director Lin Yiju from the Pharmacy Department of Kunming Maternal and Child Health Center noted that while hospitals possess vast amounts of clinical data, extracting valuable, actionable data is challenging. Transforming data into evidence-based evidence must rely on standardized pharmacoeconomic evaluation, requiring improved unified data standards and a complete research system.
Li Yang, Director of Policy Research and Value Evidence at Haisco Pharmaceutical Group, emphasized from an industry perspective that the core starting point of all real-world research should be patient-centric. Using case studies from their innovative drug pipeline, he called for the medical insurance system to routinely accept standardized RWS evidence and for medical institutions to integrate RWE into clinical management standards, continuously exploring localized real-world research paradigms suitable for the Chinese pharmaceutical market.
Concluding the discussion, host Professor Sun Lihua summarized four core consensus points: First, the fundamental goal of real-world research is to promote rational clinical drug use, which is also the underlying logic of coordinated healthcare reform. Second, data quality is the research foundation; medical institutions must manage data at the source and establish a full-process standardized data management mechanism. Third, study design must balance the interests of medical insurance, hospitals, companies, and patients, ensuring fairness and practicality. Fourth, continuously adhere to clinical effectiveness and health economic value as the guide, ensure data completeness and rigorous analytical methods, and produce credible real-world evidence.
Interactive Q&A and Conference Summary: Anchoring Industry Direction and Planning Long-Term Strategy
After the roundtable, an open Q&A session was held. Attendees posed practical questions on integrating RCT and RWE data and linking economic models. The expert panel responded unanimously: randomized controlled trials and real-world studies have distinct underlying logics and applicable scenarios; it is not recommended to simply mix the two types of data, and each study type must strictly follow its corresponding scientific standards independently.
Concluding the conference, Deputy Director Wang Qinghua of the Kunming Municipal Health Commission delivered a summary speech. Deputy Director Wang highly commended the "Boya Hui - Evidence-Based China Tour" national symposium series and fully affirmed the outcomes of the Kunming session, noting that the meeting comprehensively reviewed and validated the core value of real-world research in the pharmaceutical and medical insurance fields. He proposed that medical institutions and pharmaceutical industry entities should proactively grasp the new direction of national real-world policy reforms and prepare evidence for the full lifecycle of drugs in advance. He also expressed hope that real-world research and pharmacoeconomics would continue to innovate and develop, producing more research results applicable to the domestic medical landscape and supporting the high-quality development of health services in Yunnan and nationwide.
The "Boya Hui - Evidence-Based China Tour" Kunming symposium concluded successfully. This event brought together professional forces from medical insurance regulatory authorities, tertiary hospitals, university research institutes, and pharmaceutical companies, successfully bridging long-standing communication gaps among policy, clinical, academic, and industry sectors, and establishing a high-quality evidence-based exchange bridge in the Southwest region. The entire conference delved into common industry pain points, including real-world research data governance, study design, medical insurance review acceptance rules, and the integration of RWS and pharmacoeconomics. Experts from various fields shared their views and engaged in thorough debate, ultimately forming several actionable, locally applicable industry consensus points. This provides a clear and feasible practical pathway for medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies in Yunnan and the Southwest region to conduct standardized real-world research and build a complete drug value evaluation system.
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