Pharmaceutical companies are facing new hurdles in China as healthcare reform shifts the financial playing field -- although critics say the debacle is the result of hospitals seeking to beef up their own profit.

At the center of the debate is a new push to require drug makers to pay a "deposit" of as much as tens of thousands of dollars per product in order to have their drugs sold in Chinese hospitals, which are under increasing financial strain as a result of the country's efforts to clean up the corruption-ridden...