With regard to the export of pharmaceutical preparations, why is China inferior to India?

Business News Agency September 13 News According to FDA officials, India has become the country with the largest number of pharmaceutical preparations exported to the United States. Even Japan, Asia's number one pharmaceutical industry powerhouse, does not export as many pharmaceutical preparations to the United States as India. According to U.S. media reports, of the 65 anti-HIV generic drug preparations on the U.S. market in 2008, 60 were exported by Indian companies. In contrast, China has only one anti-HIV generic drug product exported to the United States (from Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical Industry). According to news from the European Medicines Commission, as of the end of last year, Indian pharmaceutical companies received a total of 617 European Union-issued COS certificates, which is approximately six times more than the number of COS certificates obtained by Chinese pharmaceutical companies.

Why is China inferior to India in the export of preparations? Throughout the development of the Indian pharmaceutical industry, there are many places worthy of our pharmaceutical companies to learn from and learn from.

Experience 1: Policy Support

In the 1980s, the Indian government formulated an ambitious "15-year plan for the development of India's pharmaceutical industry", and introduced a number of supporting measures, including credit support for export-oriented pharmaceutical companies and export tax rebates for pharmaceutical products. . Facts have proved that India's policy of encouraging the export of pharmaceutical products has achieved great success. From the "pharmaceutical weak state" 20 years ago, it has become the first country in Asia to export the generic pharmaceutical preparations in the US market. It is understood that since 1995, Indian pharmaceutical companies have stepped up efforts to open up the US market. Taking bulk drugs (similar drugs) as an example, there are 648 Indian pharmaceutical companies that received the DMF certificate issued by the US FDA, which is about 2.2 times that of China. In the export of pharmaceutical preparations to the United States, India far exceeds China. For example, there are 78 Indian pharmaceutical companies that have obtained FDA cGMP certification, and there are only a few in China. According to Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry officials, due to the efforts of Indian pharmaceutical companies after more than 10 years, they have finally established their own good (drug) production norms, and at the same time, they have taken advantage of the low labor cost in India, enabling Indian drugs to enter the US and European markets smoothly. .

Experience 2: "Going Out" M&A

As we all know, the profits of export preparations are much higher than those of raw materials for export. However, many enterprises in China still follow the old path of exporting bulk pharmaceuticals in exchange for foreign exchange since the 1980s. They do not want to make breakthroughs in the export of pharmaceutical preparations. This is because the export of pharmaceutical products in the international mainstream market requires not only huge investments in the transformation of factory buildings, production equipment and other hardware and software, but also through relevant international certifications; in contrast, the export of pharmaceutical raw materials is much simpler. As long as it meets the quality standards provided by foreign companies. Therefore, China's pharmaceutical companies prefer to "become roads" to do raw material drug export business. This is actually a short-sighted act that only shows immediate interests. At present, many varieties of China's export of raw materials are "roadside goods," and the export price is about 10 dollars per kilogram. Once raw material medicines are processed into preparations for export, their prices will turn several times or even hundreds of times.

From India's development experience, first of all, India's powerful pharmaceutical companies actively "go global" to participate in the global pharmaceutical industry mergers and acquisitions, so that they can not only stand in the high-end markets such as Europe and the United States, but also can directly absorb the development of new drugs from European and American pharmaceutical companies. The advanced concepts in the field have gained marketing networks and valuable marketing experience in the European and American markets. This is what Asian pharmaceutical companies lack. Since 1996, India’s three major pharmaceutical giants, Nanxin Pharmaceutical, Dr. Reid’s Experimental Pharmaceuticals, and Cipla Pharmaceutical have established cooperation with developed countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Switzerland. Sole proprietorship or joint venture pharmaceutical company. It now appears that the “going out” strategy of Indian pharmaceutical companies has been a great success in the past 10 years. Indian preparations sell well in European and American markets and are not unrelated to such international mergers and acquisitions.

Experience 3: Actively participate in international procurement

It is understood that the United Nations Department of Health annually invites a number of external medicines to be used for free delivery to less developed third-world countries, including anti-diarrhea medicines, antipyretic analgesics, children's cough syrup, anti-HIV medicines and others. Drugs that are urgently needed by people in developed countries. In the past 10 years, Indian pharmaceutical companies have repeatedly won the export of ordinary drugs tendered by the United Nations. In addition to the export advantages of domestic anti-malarial drugs such as artemisinin, Chinese pharmaceutical companies have mostly lost to India in the United Nations tender for pharmaceutical exports. The reasons are: First, the labor cost of Indian pharmaceutical companies is much lower than that of China, which is 1/2 to 1/3 of the monthly income of pharmaceutical workers in China. Second, the number of Indian companies obtaining US DMF and cGMP certificates is much higher than that of China. This marks that more Indian companies have excellent "software and hardware capabilities" for pharmaceutical production. According to the latest report, the export of preparations of three major pharmaceutical companies in India has accounted for about 30% of their profits, and the preparation of our country is basically based on domestic sales.