Drug production requires a large number of special chemicals, which were originally produced by the pharmaceutical industry, but with the deepening of the social division of labor and the progress of production technology, the pharmaceutical industry has transferred some pharmaceutical intermediates to chemical enterprises for production. Medical intermediates belong to fine chemical products. The production of medical intermediates has become a major industry in the international chemical industry. At present, China’s pharmaceutical industry needs more than 2,000 kinds of chemical supporting raw materials and intermediates every year, with a demand of more than 2.5 million tons.
Because the export of pharmaceutical intermediates is not restricted by importing countries like the export of pharmaceuticals, and the production of pharmaceutical intermediates in the world is shifting to developing countries, the chemical raw materials and intermediates needed by China’s pharmaceutical production can be basically matched, and only a small part of them need to be imported. Moreover, due to China’s abundant resources and low prices of raw materials, many medical intermediates are exported in large quantities.
Looking at the whole industry, China’s pharmaceutical intermediates industry has six characteristics: first, most of the enterprises are private enterprises, flexible operation, small investment scale, basically between millions and ten to twenty million yuan; Second, the geographical distribution of enterprises is concentrated, mainly in Taizhou, Zhejiang province and Jintan, Jiangsu Province as the center; Third, with the increasing attention of the state to environmental protection, the pressure of enterprises to build environmental protection treatment facilities is increasing; Fourth, the product update speed is fast, generally 3 to 5 years after entering the market, the profit rate will drop significantly, forcing enterprises to constantly develop new products or improve the process, in order to obtain higher profits; Fifth, because the profit of the production of medical intermediates is higher than that of general chemical products, and the production process is basically the same, more and more small chemical enterprises have joined the ranks of the production of medical intermediates, leading to the disorderly competition in the industry is increasingly fierce; Sixth, compared with API, the profit margin of production of intermediates is low, and the production process of API and pharmaceutical intermediates is similar. Therefore, some enterprises not only produce intermediates, but also start to produce API by taking advantage of their own advantages. Experts point out that it is an inevitable trend for the production of pharmaceutical intermediates to develop towards bulk drug. However, due to the single use of API and the great influence of pharmaceutical enterprises, the phenomenon that there is no user after the development of the product often occurs in China. Therefore, production enterprises should establish long-term stable supply relationship with pharmaceutical enterprises to ensure smooth product sales.
Post time: Nov-20-2022