China's children's drug market grows 90% faster than foreign capital

Business Club May 20 News Recently, the Southern Food and Economic Research Institute of the State Food and Drug Administration predicted that in the future children's drug sales in China will continue to maintain an average annual growth rate of more than double digits, and it is expected to reach 66.9 billion yuan by 2015 . It can be seen from this that the Chinese children's medicine market has a broad prospect. However, this year, children's drug safety incidents have been reported frequently. The news that a child's anti-fever medicine and a child's vaccine is deadly have aroused widespread concern in the community regarding children's drug safety.

Only 60 kinds of children's drugs in our country

Children and young children need medicines that suit their physical characteristics to help them get rid of the pain. Statistics show that there are 367 million children in China, which means that the actual capacity of the Chinese children's drug market is huge. Take the fever as an example only. The average annual incidence rate of children aged 0-12 years is 3.72 times. According to the five-day incidence, if you take 3 packets of cold granules every day, you will need 20.48 billion packets in total. According to the preliminary forecast of the relevant agencies, Chinese children's medicine has a market space of at least 50 billion yuan.

However, there are few thousands of pharmaceutical factories in China that produce very few children's medicines, and there is a strong scientific research strength. There are even rare specialty pharmaceutical companies that can independently develop children's new drugs. 90% of the market share is divided by a few foreign companies. What is more worrying is that 90% of the drugs in the domestic market have no children's dosage forms, and pediatricians rely on experience to administer medicines, resulting in huge potential safety risks. Not only the pharmaceutical market, but also in the field of health products, foreign companies and joint ventures are also very strong. In the children's vitamin market, more than 90% of the shares are occupied by several major companies such as Wyeth, Roche and Squibb.

In March last year, Kangzhi Pharmaceutical wrote in its "Prospecting Books": "On the one hand, children's drugs have a particularly high safety requirement; on the other hand, the children's drug market should have been a big market, but adult drugs currently occupy children. In the drug market, if there is no special sales channel, ordinary pharmaceutical manufacturers cannot achieve good results in this market."

According to the director of the China Children's Health Care Disease Prevention and Control Center and director of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Children's Health Cooperation Center, Dai Yaohua, the reporter said: “The current status of Chinese children’s medicine needs to be changed as soon as possible. The government, companies, and the public should work together to tailor products for children. ."

According to her, in the current more than 3,000 drugs, there are roughly 60 kinds of children's medicines, but even these 60 kinds of drugs have the problem of monotonous dosage forms and monotonous types.

At the same time, it is worth noting that monitoring shows that the rate of adverse drug reactions in Chinese children is twice that of adults, and that of newborns is as much as four times. One third of all Chinese people who die each year from bad drugs are children. The core reason is that children have “no medicine available.” Children have to take adult medicine for reduction. However, children's metabolism is different from that of adults, and their livers and kidneys are all under development, which easily causes adverse drug reactions.

Individual companies drink "head soup"

The reporter learned from interviews and investigations that some domestic Chinese medicine companies are making efforts to expand the children's drug market and introduce products that are suitable for children. From the perspective of the listed companies in the first quarter of this year, companies with advantages in the channels and reputation of the children's medicine market have already enjoyed “head soup”.

Daineng Pharmaceutical’s subsidiary, Dain Pharmaceuticals, contributed greatly to the company's contribution in the first quarter of this year. According to the company's quarterly report, the profit of Dyne Pharmaceuticals, which produces children's calcium supplement products, was 15 million yuan, compared with only 4 million yuan in the same period last year.

According to Shanghai Securities and Pharmaceutical Researcher Zhao Bing, from the perspective of the company's product structure, Iraqi new accounted for more than 75% of its sales revenue, other second-tier products are Gadixin, dextran iron oral liquid and so on. Ikexin is a vitamin AD drop. The drug is a child health drug. Although there are many similar products in the market, the company’s market share has remained at the top.

According to CITIC Securities industry researcher, the company’s product positioning is clear, and it firmly grasps the fastest growing market segment in the pediatrics. At the same time, due to the company's reliable product quality, low price and high quality, and the hospital's marketing model to drive pharmacy sales, the product has established a good reputation among parents, saving the company a lot of promotion expenses.

The company’s secretary general, Fan Zhisheng, told reporters that Dyne’s positioning has become clear and will become a leader in child care and treatment. In the future, the company will consolidate the advantages of channel and word of mouth and further expand its existing advantageous products.

Even so, it is hard to become a forest. Although companies such as Kangzhi Pharmaceutical and Shanda Walter have started to plunge into the children's medicine market, the development of the entire market still requires more investment from enterprises.

In addition, in terms of government support, relevant experts have appealed that China should learn from foreign experience and actively support child drug manufacturers from a policy perspective. “Includes pharmaceutical companies to develop a certain period of market protection for children’s medicines and urges pharmaceutical companies to actively conduct clinical research on children’s medicines. We encourage children’s pharmaceutical companies to join forces, mergers, and reorganizations to achieve resource convergence, asset appreciation, and strong competition. In addition, the country can also provide children with drug research support by granting loans and incentives, which not only increases the enthusiasm of children's drug research, but also alleviates the difficulty of less funds to a certain extent, thus killing two birds with one stone.” one expert suggested Say.