China is known as the land of big numbers - and this also applies to the local pharmaceutical industry. With currently over 4,800 pharmaceutical manufacturers, the Chinese market continues to offer huge opportunities for the global equipment industry. A current "Vogel Market Insight Report" shows: Despite extensive copying attempts by local equipment companies, the user industry cannot avoid Western high-tech equipment.
China's pharmaceutical industry is in a state of upheaval. The Chinese government has issued several new directives, including the "Two Invoice" regulation and the "4+7 Drug Procurement with Target Quantity" regulations, in order to strengthen the monitoring of the huge pharmaceutical market and significantly improve the quality of medicines. The aim is not only to improve quality, but also to significantly increase efficiency and cost savings in the system.
But despite - or perhaps because of - the large numbers: The gap between top pharmaceutical products and the use of high-quality supplier technologies is still all too often wide in the 'Middle Kingdom', especially among local manufacturers. As a recent report by "PharmaTec China" (a specialist medium of the Vogel Communications Group) in collaboration with "M2Consulting" shows, China's pharmaceutical industry still cannot do without Western high-tech equipment and technologies.
Although there are many copies and replicas, local high-tech is in short supply, not least due to a lack of precision. This is despite the fact that the supplier segment already has around 1,000 companies. It is therefore hardly surprising that many returnees from abroad, as specialists from larger Chinese pharmaceutical manufacturers, are familiar with Western quality technologies and want to continue to rely on them in the future. Smaller, purely local pharmaceutical manufacturers, on the other hand, continue to rely on replicas from a Chinese equipment industry that is still far from competitive internationally for cost reasons.
However, as much as Western providers can score points with technological precision technologies, they are clearly not as convincing when it comes to aftersales. "Chinese users in the pharmaceutical industry often perceive deficits as a shortcoming of Western technology providers. The results of the survey show that local suppliers with fast and efficient services can obviously score even better than the technology leaders from the West," emphasizes Jiaqi Zhu, Project Manager Market Insights at Vogel Communications Group. However, the results of the study illustrate the continuing high overall need for investment among pharmaceutical manufacturers - for example with regard to capacity expansions in production, the required technologies and necessary digitalization measures. "Against this backdrop, global high-tech providers in China continue to have very good growth opportunities," says Zhu confidently.
The 40-page, English-language report with many figures, graphics and recommendations for action is based on a large survey of users in the pharmaceutical industry in China and is aimed primarily at technology and equipment companies that have their eye on this growth market. Detailed information on the report can be found here.
