Due to the fact that exporting pharmaceutical intermediates is not subject to various restrictions from importing countries like exporting drugs, and the shift of global pharmaceutical intermediate production to developing countries, the chemical raw materials and intermediates required for China's pharmaceutical production can basically be matched, with only a small portion needing to be imported. Moreover, due to China's abundant resources and low raw material prices, many pharmaceutical intermediates have been exported in large quantities.
Drug production requires a large amount of special chemicals. Most of these chemicals were originally produced by the pharmaceutical industry itself, but with the deepening of social division of labor and the advancement of production technology, the pharmaceutical industry has transferred some pharmaceutical intermediates to be produced by chemical enterprises.
At present, the Chinese pharmaceutical industry requires over 2000 types of chemical raw materials and intermediates annually, with a demand of over 2.5 million tons.
At present, there are six major characteristics of China's pharmaceutical intermediate industry:
Firstly, most enterprises are private enterprises with flexible operations and small investment scales, ranging from several million to one to twenty million yuan;
Secondly, the geographical distribution of enterprises is relatively concentrated, mainly centered around Taizhou in Zhejiang and Jintan in Jiangsu;
Thirdly, with the increasing emphasis on environmental protection by the country, the pressure on enterprises to build environmental treatment facilities is increasing;
Fourthly, the product update speed is fast. Generally, after 3-5 years of entering the market, the profit margin drops significantly, forcing enterprises to constantly develop new products or improve processes in order to obtain higher profits;
The fifth reason is that the production profit of pharmaceutical intermediates is higher than that of general chemical products, and the production process is basically the same. More and more small chemical enterprises are joining the ranks of producing pharmaceutical intermediates, leading to increasingly fierce competition in the industry;
Compared with active pharmaceutical ingredients, the profit margin of intermediate production is relatively low, and the production process of active pharmaceutical ingredients is similar to that of pharmaceutical intermediates. Therefore, some companies not only produce intermediates, but also use their own advantages to start producing active pharmaceutical ingredients.
As early as the 1980s and 1990s, many small chemical enterprises joined the production of pharmaceutical intermediates due to their higher profits than general chemical products.
Faced with fierce competition in the pharmaceutical intermediate industry today, many companies have begun to shift their focus to the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients.
