2010-07-05 2392
According to the news from Business Times on February 2nd, in the face of the comprehensive and official launch of the new healthcare reform in China, which brings new opportunities for the development of antibiotics, as well as the gloomy shadow of the global financial crisis and the slowdown in the global pharmaceutical market, the antibiotic market in China in 2010 faces both challenges and opportunities. It requires rational navigation through three barriers: technological innovation, conceptual renewal, and marketing revolution. To achieve scientific development, green growth, and sustainable development, it is necessary to possess three essential forces: resilience, vitality, and quality.
1. Technological Innovation:
Due to low-level repetitive construction and severe product homogeneity, the antibiotic market in China faces intense low-price competition, resulting in limited overall profitability and a significant gap with developed countries in terms of high-end antibiotic varieties and cutting-edge technologies, even compared to India. Currently, the three fastest-growing categories of new antibiotics in the international pharmaceutical market are carbapenems, glycopeptides (such as teicoplanin), and oxazolidinones (such as linezolid), accounting for approximately 20% of the antibiotic market. In 2008, the global sales of carbapenems reached $2.5 billion, accounting for about 10% of the antibiotic market, and it is expected to exceed $3 billion in 2009. South Korea and India have become major producers of carbapenems in the Asian market. It is essential to accelerate the introduction and innovation of technologies for the production of carbapenems, glycopeptides, oxazolidinones, and enzyme-based antibiotic raw materials such as ampicillin, amoxicillin, cefoxitin, and cefclox.
However, the Chinese pharmaceutical industry is still in its early stages in terms of carbapenems, glycopeptides, oxazolidinones, and the enzymatic production of antibiotic raw materials. The introduction and innovation of these technologies, particularly for enzyme-based production of ampicillin, amoxicillin, cefoxitin, cefclox, etc., need to be accelerated to enhance China's international competitiveness in antibiotics. It should be noted that the difficulty of antibiotic technological innovation has been increasing. Since 2000, only 18 new antibiotics have been launched, compared to over 200 new antimicrobial drugs developed before 2000. In this situation, Chinese enterprises should seize the opportunity, innovate research models, and increase research efforts on relatively weakly studied microbial secondary metabolites, such as marine microorganisms, endophytic fungi, and other symbiotic microorganisms. By combining genomics, proteomics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and other research methods, new vitality can be injected into the development of new antibiotics, bringing about a new situation in the antibiotic market.
With the gradual implementation of new policies such as healthcare reform and the basic drug system, the demand in the pharmaceutical market is expected to increase, which will drive the enthusiasm of pharmaceutical companies to increase production. However, the production capacity of most antibiotic varieties in China is still excessive, especially in the oral formulation market, which presents a situation of excessive fragmentation and waste of production capacity among small and medium-sized enterprises. In this case, antibiotic companies should update their business concepts, shift from blind expansion to "green investment," promote the optimization of product structure and quality upgrades, and enhance their competitiveness in the market.
Furthermore, with the implementation of the basic drug system, rational use of basic drugs needs to be guided and regulated, especially in rural markets. Attention should be given to the rational use of antibiotics, which rank first in clinical drug use expenditure, and the changes in demand structure. Measures should be taken to guide consumption in a rational manner. It is particularly important to strictly promote and regulate the clinical application of quinolone antibiotics, maintain the reasonable proportion of penicillin antibiotics, and control the excessive use of cephalosporin antibiotics.
2. Marketing Revolution:
As antibiotics are prescription drugs with relatively high technical content, increasing the added value of products is key to maintaining and expanding market share. In a market where price competition prevails, rational enterprises should be innovative and timely adjust their product management and sales strategies, focusing on developing new products and cultivating new markets. For antibiotics with higher technical content, value marketing, brand marketing, and service marketing are always the focal points of the market.
It is crucial to pay attention to the trends in rational clinical drug use and the sustainable development direction of the market. Combination enzyme-resistant antibiotics have become a hot topic in the market in recent years. Dr. Yang Jinbo from the Drug Evaluation Center of the National Medical Products Administration pointed out that β-lactamase inhibitors only restore, but do not enhance, the antibacterial activity of antibiotics. Currently, there are only six combination antibiotic formulations on the market in developed countries in Europe and America, while the number of declared combination formulations on the website of the Drug Evaluation Center of the National Medical Products Administration increased to 14 in addition to the foreign six in 2007. It is important to note that excessive use of combination antibiotics often induces severe drug resistance and new resistance phenomena. Therefore, the pros and cons must be weighed, and cautious selection should be exercised.
From the perspective of market demand theory, the antibiotic market mainly belongs to a non-elastic competition market, where price is not the sole determining factor for demand. Macro control policies of the government, consumer spending levels, social development status, and the quality, safety, and effectiveness of drugs all have a significant impact on market demand. From the analysis of market competition relationships, antibiotics have become an industry with "high risks, high investments, and low benefits." Therefore, for this particular market, on one hand, the government will strengthen the control of macro policies and raise market access thresholds. On the other hand, self-discipline of enterprise market behavior becomes particularly important.