China Drug Auction Squeezes AstraZeneca in Key Asthma Market

AstraZeneca Plc failed to win a contract to supply its asthma treatment to hospitals in China, a blow to the drugmaker’s effort to derive more revenue from the world’s second-largest market for medicines.

The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical giant has been a leading supplier of the inhaled asthma drug budesonide in China, but in the country’s latest public procurement auction -- aimed at cutting spending on commonly used medicines -- four domestic drugmakers won out.

Budesonide has been the best-selling inhaled asthma drug in China for years, generating some 5.4 billion yuan ($834 million) in annual sales. Much of that revenue went ...