Our Thoughts On API China 2019 In Hangzhou
API China 2019 In Hangzhou is over for almost one month, but we didn’t get to share our thoughts about it till today.
Below are several of our thoughts about API China 2019 in Hangzhou, hoping they can be useful for you, our dear customers.
1. More APIs Are Imported From Other Countries
There are more and more imported APIs and basic chemical solvents introduced, mainly from India and Europe.
Those imported APIs are either introduced by Chinese trading companies or by Foreign exhibitors.
For API importers, you can take note of which APIs are from which country, so you can try to locate your suppliers for certain APIs.
We saw a big billboard advertising all the imported APIs from one shanghai trading company.
The number of imported APIs is over 80, this is a sign that China is more and more open, we introduce and import more foreign APIs for the needs of the Chinese market.
We can also see more and more imported APIs are under registration in the Chinese FDA.
2. More Indian Suppliers Are Exhibiting
It is common to see Indian exhibitors in CPHI Shanghai every June.
There are International exhibition halls for foreign countries that have the interest to showcase and promote their strong APIs.
But It is a whole different thing to see Indian Exhibitors in API China because API China mainly targets end-users in China.
Without the obvious advantage of prices, they will not bother to put a show here.
This proves that for certain APIs Chinese manufacturers are not competitive, but the Indian competitors are happy to take over these market shares.
Take imatinib, for example, Imatinib mesylate raw material from India is already an old API with better prices and document support compared to that of China, not to mention the prices of finished medicines.
Many Chinese patients have been buying imatinib tablets from Indian distributors for many years.
There was even a movie about one lawsuit against a medicine smuggler from China when the smuggler was captured and put into prison.
As for imatinib API, only 1 CEP holder is from China: Qilu TianHe Pharma. But there are 6 of them from India, which out-numbers China by 5.
CEP holders for imatinib from India are as below:
1. Hetero Labs. 2. Shipla Medicare. 3. Laurus Labs. 4. Natco Pharma. 5. Cipla Limited. 6. Msn Laboratories
3. API Prices are getting higher every year.
We have inquired about several APIs from this fair, and the prices for cheap APIs such as paracetamol, metronidazole, aspirin, salicylic acid, etc, prices almost got doubled compared to that in 2017.
The price rise is mainly due to the rising costs of the environment and labor.
Basic raw materials prices keep rising due to the shut-down of small factories without proper environmental protection equipment.
Increasing demand for upper-stream raw materials keeps pushing API prices to go higher.
India will take over more market shares of APIs that China is not competitive on.
4. No new molecules, only Conventional APIs with cGMP
For chemical importers who wish to explore new API suppliers in China, API China is not a good choice.
Throughout the fair, all you can see are those conventional APIs with Chinese GMP Certificates which China is competitive.
For example, certain antibiotics (Vancomycin, Spectinomycin Hydrochloride, Bacitracin, Bacitracin Zinc, Polymyxin B Sulphate, Amoxicillin, Teicoplanin), plant extracts (Rutin, Paclitaxel, Docetaxel, Irinotecan HCl), Steroids (Hydrocortisone, Spironolactone, Dexamethasone series, Progesterone Series, etc).
India is competitive on many chemically synthesized APIs such as Pregabalin, Olopatadine HCl, phenytoin sodium, dorzolamide HCl, Nebivolol, etc, the list can go on and on.
When you importers find the offers of certain APIs from Chinese suppliers are very high, or not many suppliers in China can supply them, do not be surprised.
Try your luck in India!
For those APIs that China is not competitive with, Chinese manufacturers just stop manufacturing or keep a very small production capacity to cater to the needs of domestic medicine manufacturers.
The fair in China to attend to explore more new molecules is CPHI Shanghai every June, where you can see the latest molecules along with conventional APIs with Chinese GMP and DMF.