In 2022, the demand for pharmaceutical intermediates will increase to 231 billion yuan

Pharmaceutical intermediates are chemical raw materials or chemical products used in the process of drug synthesis. Intermediates are the key products in the previous process of making API. According to the provisions of China National Food and Drug Administration, pharmaceutical intermediates can be regarded as pharmaceutical raw materials. Although it is not necessary to apply for approval or batch number in accordance with pharmaceutical rules, the product quality must reach a certain level and usually needs to be reviewed by customers before it can become qualified suppliers.

China needs more than 2000 kinds of raw materials and intermediates for chemical industry every year, and the demand is more than 2.5 million tons. After more than 30 years of development, China's pharmaceutical production of chemical raw materials and intermediates can be basically matched, only a small part of the need to import.

With the progress of medicine, domestic and even global drug r&d and production is expected to continue to grow, and the market size of pharmaceutical intermediates will continue to expand. According to relevant data, the market size of pharmaceutical intermediates in China will reach 220 billion yuan in 2021; It is expected to grow to 231 billion yuan in 2022; By 2026, the market is expected to exceed 290 billion yuan.

However, while the pharmaceutical industry has great development potential, pharmaceutical intermediates suppliers are also transforming to quality. The difficulty of developing new products is increasing, the competition of traditional products is also increasingly fierce, and the influence of national environmental protection policy, the output of pharmaceutical intermediates in China has decreased.

For example, in terms of environmental protection, API and pharmaceutical intermediates manufacturing is a heavy pollution industry, so the environmental protection requirements are higher than the general industry. With the enhancement of public awareness of environmental protection and the continuous improvement of national requirements for environmental protection, the production process design of relevant enterprises and the treatment and discharge of pollutants will continue to increase substantially. Therefore, enterprises without advantages of environmental protection technology, scale and cost will be gradually eliminated, while new enterprises with insufficient strength will also be rejected by environmental protection barriers. At the same time, the pharmaceutical intermediates industry also faces the technology and industry access barriers.

Although pharmaceutical intermediates industry is facing environmental protection, technology and industry access barriers, but China's pharmaceutical intermediates industry is developing rapidly, the overall supply capacity is constantly improving.