How China's Pharmaceutical Industry Faces India's Challenges

      In recent years, India's pharmaceutical industry has sprung up and developed rapidly, which has impacted my country's pharmaceutical industry. Many people in the industry even exclaimed that the Indian pharmaceutical industry has become our strongest competitor.
     The pharmaceutical industries of China and India have both entered the ranks of world powers in terms of manufacturing capacity, especially the production of bulk antibiotics. The two countries can basically control the international market; both countries are the main producers of generic drugs in the world. At present, China can produce more than 1,400 raw materials, more than 4,000 types of preparation products, more than 8,000 types of traditional Chinese medicines, and has expertise in vitamins, antipyretic analgesics, hormone drugs, penicillins and β-lactam drugs. Comparative advantage; India can produce more than 400 kinds of raw materials, and the total number of ethnic medicines in India is more than 1,000. In sulfa drugs (such as sulfamethoxazole), some macrolide drugs (such as roxithromycin, clarithromycin) It is a world leader in terms of quinolone drugs (such as ciprofloxacin), and some antipyretic and analgesic drugs (such as ibuprofen). China is now fully implementing GMP, and more than 1,800 companies have passed GMP certification; the Indian pharmaceutical industry also has good facilities, and more than 20 pharmaceutical manufacturers have been certified by the US FDA. In terms of finished drug exports, India will continue to lead. The following is a detailed analysis and comparison of the pharmaceutical industries of the two countries from different aspects.
The internationalization of Indian pharmaceutical companies far exceeds Chinese pharmaceutical companies
     India's pharmaceutical industry is highly internationalized, and drugs produced in India can be sold to more than 100 countries in the world. In 1996, Indian Sun Pharmaceuticals acquired Caraco Pharmaceuticals in Detroit, USA, and entered the US market; Nanxin acquired Bayer Basics, Bayer’s generic drug subsidiary, and entered the German market. The company has manufacturing plants in 6 overseas countries. . The influence of these Indian companies in the world pharmaceutical market is higher than that of Chinese companies.
Chinese medicines can also be sold to more than 100 countries and regions in the world, mainly raw materials with low added value. It is difficult for my country's preparations to go abroad, and the export of western medicine preparations has been hovering at around US$1 billion for many years. China also lags behind India in the operation of the international capital market for pharmaceutical companies. Although China has established a few pharmaceutical joint ventures in developing countries such as Africa, it rarely acquires or merges pharmaceutical companies in developed countries in the capital market, and it rarely directly invests in Western countries. my country has not even established pharmaceutical production and operating companies in India. There are two main reasons for this. First, China lacks compound talents who understand technology and management, and have a good foreign language foundation, which hinders Chinese pharmaceutical companies from going global. India’s relatively developed education industry has reserved a huge number of scientific and technological talents for it, of which 35 million are proficient in English, making it easy for Indian pharmaceutical companies to communicate with local people when they merge or acquire local companies overseas. However, Chinese pharmaceutical companies often use traditional export trade methods to enter the world market. Second, China lacks familiarity and understanding of the laws and regulations on capital operation in the international market.
Patent system: once on the same starting line
     In order to cultivate the national pharmaceutical industry, the Indian government has implemented a series of supporting policies over the years. In 1970, the “Patent Law” promulgated by India confirmed process patents (a process used to manufacture synthetic drugs as patents), but did not confirm product patents, that is, no patents were granted for food and drug substances, only The manufacturing method was granted a patent. This has encouraged Indian pharmaceutical companies to replace imports with a large number of generic drugs. China enacted the first "Patent Law" in 1985. For the same reason, China's "Patent Law" only protects the production process of medicines, but does not protect the medicines themselves. After India joined the WTO in 1994, it realized that patent law must comply with international standards. Sun Pharmaceuticals has achieved good results in the research and development of anti-tumor drugs, and Cipla has begun independent research and development of drugs in the United States. It can be seen that India is marching into the field of high-end patented drugs.
In September 2009, nearly 200 representatives from the three sectors of China's pharmaceutical industry, academia, and research participated in the China Antibiotic 60 Years Summit. At the forum, Chinese pharmaceutical companies generally expressed optimism about the development of Indian pharmaceutical manufacturing and expressed their efforts to move from manufacturing in China as soon as possible. made in China. An article published in the "Pharmaceutical Economic News" on September 28, 2009 analyzed that the historical national conditions, industrial enterprise hardware, R&D level and development time of the pharmaceutical industry in China and India were about the same, and even the Chinese pharmaceutical industry had more Inherent advantages, but after years of development, India has produced large pharmaceutical companies such as Nanxin, Dr Reddy, Cipla, etc., and the level of R&D innovation is rapidly increasing, and the international market position is increasing, while Chinese pharmaceutical companies are still at a low level. Repeated construction and internal low-price competition stage. At the same time, in recent years, Sino-Indian pharmaceutical trade frictions have continued. A series of trade disputes centered on the anti-dumping case of penicillin industrial salt. The trade volume of related products involved is often hundreds of millions of dollars, which reflects the fierce competition between the two countries. While the Indian medical field has unknowingly risen, we cannot commit "panic syndrome".
How Chinese Pharmaceutical Companies Cope with Challenges
     The first is to use generic drugs for primitive accumulation, "innovation in imitation". India has seized the generic and innovative strategies of those patented drugs that have passed the patent protection period or are about to expire, accumulating original funds for their rapid rise, and winning an excellent opportunity. After the expansion of generic drugs, Indian pharmaceutical companies began to consider investing in the development of innovative drugs, completing the process from imitation to innovation. For many years, my country's drug production has also been dominated by imitation. Unlike India, so far, the imitation of Chinese pharmaceutical companies has been more of a low-level modification of dosage forms, and there is little innovation at all. With the acceleration of the globalization process, the profit margin and living space of drug imitation will become smaller and smaller. Chinese pharmaceutical companies should walk on two legs, combine imitation and innovation, absorb advanced foreign technology for our use, and complete the transition from simple The role change from imitation to "innovation in imitation, independent innovation".
     The second is to upgrade the industry in a timely manner. In the pharmaceutical industry, the typical "Indian model" represents the way that most companies first produce ordinary APIs, then transform to special APIs, and finally expand the field of preparation production until they intervene in the field of new drug research and development. From intermediates to APIs to preparations, the export of low-value-added APIs to the production of high-value-added preparations is the path that most Chinese pharmaceutical companies have taken or are taking, but some Chinese pharmaceutical companies are not like India. Such timely industrial upgrading will inevitably lead to insufficient stamina and low ability to participate in international competition.
     The third is to effectively participate in international cooperation and competition. Due to the lack of experience in developing foreign markets for pharmaceutical companies in developing countries, it is difficult to enter the developed countries in Europe and America. Indian pharmaceutical companies have overcome this problem by cooperating with local pharmaceutical companies in the target market by establishing contacts with major generic drug companies through European and American distributor organizations, and using partners’ sales channels to distribute their products; Cooperate in new drug research and development with multinational companies and establish R&D institutions overseas to make full use of the resources of multinational companies. At the same time, in order to enter the developed countries, some powerful pharmaceutical companies in India took the initiative to acquire small and medium-sized enterprises in developed countries, using their mature brands, familiarity with local laws and policies, franchised distribution rights of certain products and domestic sales channels to integrate and extend Own industrial chain. However, Chinese pharmaceutical companies often use traditional export trade methods to enter the world market. As more and more pharmaceutical companies participate in international competition, China's pharmaceutical industry needs to establish an international strategy suitable for the company. Through cooperation and competition with the most advanced pharmaceutical companies, it will drive the development of the entire corporate philosophy, equipment update and product structure. Adjustment.
     The fourth is to attach importance to personnel training. Indian pharmaceutical companies attract high-level technical and management personnel through high salaries. It is reported that the salaries of technicians in Indian pharmaceutical companies are quite high, and India is an English-speaking country with language advantages. China's talent problem is mainly manifested in the lack of compound talents who understand technology and management, and have a good foreign language foundation. Low wages also directly lead to the difficulty in retaining high-level talents. To solve this problem, we can start from three aspects: one is to focus on cultivating high-quality compound talents to be the backbone of the company's management and business; the second is to learn from the experience of other countries and vigorously implement the strategy of localization of personnel in overseas institutions; and the third is to improve remuneration. Give high-quality talents more opportunities to make them willing to stay.
     The development of China's pharmaceutical industry is inseparable from the competition with international pharmaceutical powers. At the same time, we must also wrestle with rising stars like India. We must not be afraid, let alone panic. The key is to understand our own characteristics and set clear goals based on this, so as to develop accurately. Positioning. Only in this way can we circle our own territory on the international pharmaceutical industry map.
Over the past 30 years, Indian generic drug manufacturers such as Cipla, Nam Sing, and Dr. Reddy Laboratories have promoted the transformation of the industry through fierce competition with Western multinational companies on drug pricing. This is of far-reaching significance not only to the industry, but also to consumers, enabling patients to purchase Indian imitations of prescription drugs at lower prices. India’s export market for finished generic drugs in 2005 was about US$4 billion, far exceeding China’s US$38 billion in the same period.