How to strengthen the country’s API in the face of COVID-19

The runaway outbreak  has sparked global concern.  As the world’s largest API exporters, the supply pattern of China and India has been affected.  At the same time, with the emergence of a new round of global trade protectionism and increased demand for the security of the pharmaceutical industry chain due to the epidemic, China’s API industry faces new challenges and must accelerate the transformation and upgrading from a big country to a strong one.  To this end, “Pharmaceutical Economic News” specially launched the special planning of “API road to Strong Country”.

 

The year 2020 was a year when the global pharmaceutical industry was profoundly affected by the epidemic. It was also a year when China’s API industry withstood the test of fluctuations in the international market.  According to the preliminary statistics of China Chamber of Commerce for Medical Insurance, in 2020, China’s API exports reached us $35.7 billion, another record high, with a year-on-year growth of about 6%.

 

In 2020, the growth of China’s API export was stimulated by the epidemic, which boosted the global demand for ANTI-epidemic APIS, and also affected the production of other major API producers such as India and the European Union. As a result, the transfer orders of China’s API from the international market increased.  Specifically, the export quantity of China’s API increased by 7.5% year on year, reaching 10.88 million tons.  From specific export category, anti-infection, vitamins, hormones, antipyretic analgesic, part of antibiotic resistance to disease related API category of export amount is mostly realized the different levels of growth, some specific varieties is growing rapidly, such as dexamethasone exports rose 55% year-on-year, lamivudine, vitamin C, vitamin E and other exports more than 30% year-on-year growth,  Paracetamol, annannin and other exports year-on-year growth of more than 20%.

 

Since April this year, the COVID-19 outbreak in India has become increasingly serious, and local governments have resorted to measures such as lockdown and shutdown.  As the main competitor of China’s API in the international market, the severe outbreak in India will affect the normal production and export of its API.  It is reported that in early April, the Indian government announced a ban on the export of redesivir API and preparations to meet the country’s epidemic response needs, resulting in a global supply shortage of redesivir API.  In view of the unstable supply of APIS in India, it is expected that This year, Like last year, China can still undertake some API transfer orders in the international market and maintain the stable growth of China’s API export.

 

However, the export opportunities brought by the epidemic are short-lived, and how to face the deeper risks and opportunities after the epidemic is an urgent issue for the future international development of China’s API industry.


Post time: Aug-16-2021