Drugs are a special commodity for treating diseases and protecting health. There are problems in China's drug research, production, distribution and use (1) thus the national drug policies, including government long-term frameworks and specific policies, play an important role (2). This study summarized and analyzed drug policies in China since the New Medical Reform, to determine patterns of policy change, and aiming to provide theoretical support for drug policy making for the world.

We downloaded all drug policies issued between April 2009 to December 2016 on State Council, National Development and Reform Commission, National Health and Family Planning Commission, China Food and Drug Administration websites. These documents were combined with academic articles to extract data, which was processed in Microsoft Excel 2013. We also use the Advocacy Coalition Framework to analyze dynamic factors for drug policy change in China.

There are 113 drug policies during last 8 years on 4 websites; 76 of them are released by a single ministry. Thirteen, ten, ten, fifteen, seven, fourteen, twenty-six and eighteen policies are issued each year, respectively. Fifteen are classified in long-term frameworks, while the other ninety-eight are specific policies. And fourteen of ninety-eight policies are focusing on basic drug systems, while six are on centralized purchases, nine on public hospitals reform, seven on drug safety, sixteen on prices, fourteen on distribution, twelve on administration, five on traditional medicine, and fifteen on specific drugs.

After the basic drug system was built in 2009, the government started to focus on its distribution over the next 7 years. Policies on centralized purchases are mainly issued in 2010 and 2015, and creative modes have been coming up since 2015. The Government cares not only about production safety, but also safety in sales. Prices were decided by government at first but then follow the market forces. Work focus shifted from the above contents to drug distribution, price, management and traditional medicine after 2012. The peak of policy releases occurred when the great reform took place, such as 2009 when reform began, and in 2012 the Twelfth Five-year plan began. There was a decrease in 2013 due to national leadership change (3). Overall, dynamic factors for policy change mainly are social conditions, public issues and opinions, and feedback on former policy effects.