On June 1, 2026, China officially launched the annual adjustment of the National Medical Insurance Drug Catalog and the commercial health insurance innovative drug catalog. This year’s reform adds 102 optimized application rules, forming a more standardized and inclusive drug access system for the medical insurance industry. The adjustment focuses on supporting the inclusion of high-value innovative medicines, covering anti-tumor drugs, rare disease treatments, chronic disease innovative preparations and modern traditional Chinese medicine innovations. These categories are closely related to people’s livelihood and clinical urgent needs, which can effectively reduce the medical burden of patients with serious and chronic diseases. In order to encourage pharmaceutical innovation, the new rules appropriately lower the access threshold for newly launched innovative drugs and simplify the review and approval process, shortening the cycle for new drugs to enter medical insurance. At the same time, regulatory authorities have strengthened the elimination mechanism, strictly controlling high-priced auxiliary drugs and low-efficiency drugs that occupy medical insurance fund resources but have limited clinical value. The continuous expansion of the medical insurance catalog builds a benign development ecology for the domestic pharmaceutical industry. It guides pharmaceutical enterprises to shift their development focus from generic drugs to independent research and development of innovative drugs, accelerating the transformation and upgrading of the biomedical industry. Industry analysts said that the policy release will benefit domestic innovative pharmaceutical companies, promote the rapid transformation of scientific research achievements, balance public medical welfare and industrial development, and further improve the accessibility and affordability of high-quality medical resources for residents.