● Continuous expansion of scale: The size of China's raw material drug market is expected to exceed RMB 1.2 trillion (including pharmaceutical intermediates) by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate (2020-2025) of about 8% -10%, accounting for 35% -40% of the global raw material drug supply (firmly ranking first in the world).
● Demand driven: global generic drug market growth (especially strong demand in Europe, America, India, etc.), acceleration of domestic innovative drug research and development (driving demand for high-end characteristic APIs), and global supply chain reconstruction after COVID-19 (China's supply chain stability advantages highlight).
● Bulk active pharmaceutical ingredients (such as antibiotics, vitamins, antipyretic and analgesic drugs): high concentration of production capacity (mainly in Zhejiang, Shandong, and Hebei), but fierce competition, and prices are affected by cyclical fluctuations (such as a slight decline in vitamin C prices due to overcapacity in 2025).
● Characteristic APIs (such as cardiovascular, diabetes, and anti-tumor drugs): The technical barriers are high, and domestic enterprises are accelerating their transformation to high value-added fields (such as Huahai Pharmaceutical, Puluo Pharmaceutical and other enterprises, whose export of characteristic APIs accounts for more than 60%).
● Patent active pharmaceutical ingredients (CMO/CDMO): Benefiting from the global demand for innovative drug outsourcing, leading domestic enterprises such as WuXi AppTec and Kailaiying have taken on international orders, and the growth rate of the patent active pharmaceutical ingredient market will exceed 15% by 2025.
● Environmental protection and compliance are becoming stricter: The new version of the Drug Administration Law and the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) for active pharmaceutical ingredients are strengthening environmental standards (such as accelerating the clearance of high polluting production capacity under the goal of "carbon neutrality"), promoting industry concentration.
● Centralized procurement and supply chain security: The normalization of centralized procurement of domestic drugs has forced raw material pharmaceutical companies to reduce costs and increase efficiency; At the same time, the country encourages "domestic substitution" (such as independent and controllable key intermediates) to reduce dependence on countries such as India.
● International layout: Chinese raw material pharmaceutical companies are accelerating the process of obtaining FDA and EU EDQM certifications (with over 50 companies obtaining international high-end certifications by 2025), and diversifying their export destinations (with Europe and America accounting for about 45%, and significant growth in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East).
● Green production: The application of continuous flow reaction, enzyme catalysis, biosynthesis and other technologies has been expanded (such as Zhejiang Medicine's use of enzyme method to produce vitamin E and reduce the emission of three wastes).
● Intelligent upgrading: AI assisted process optimization and popularization of digital chemical plants (for example, Huahai Pharmaceutical realizes full process traceability of API production through the industrial Internet platform).
Featured active pharmaceutical ingredients (such as ADC drug intermediates and small nucleic acid drug raw materials) and patented active pharmaceutical ingredients (providing customized services for innovative pharmaceutical companies) will become the main growth points, and companies will increase their R&D investment (the industry average R&D expense ratio is expected to increase from 5% -8% in 2025 to over 10% in 2030).
Raw material pharmaceutical companies are extending downstream formulation integration (such as Tianyu Corporation expanding from sartan based raw materials to formulation exports), or horizontally laying out biological raw materials (such as recombinant protein and peptide raw materials) to enhance profit margins.
● Globalization: With its cost advantage and technological maturity, China continues to consolidate its position as the global "supply center" for active pharmaceutical ingredients (expected to account for over 45% of the global market share by 2030).
● Regionalization: Influenced by geopolitical factors such as trade frictions between China and the United States and support for local supply chains in India, companies are accelerating the layout of production bases in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Indonesia) and Europe (Eastern Europe) to reduce trade risks.
Environmental policies continue to increase (such as EU carbon tariffs that may affect export costs), promoting companies to adopt clean energy (photovoltaic power supply) and circular economy models (such as waste solvent recycling rates exceeding 90%), and low-carbon raw material pharmaceutical companies will receive more international orders.
Deep integration of synthetic biology, AI pharmaceuticals and other technologies (such as using AI to design new drug molecules and develop corresponding active pharmaceutical ingredients), shortening the research and development cycle and reducing production costs.
● Challenges: Rising environmental costs, intensified international competition (India accelerating expansion of raw material pharmaceutical production capacity), and price fluctuations of key raw materials (such as petrochemical derivatives).
● Opportunities: Rigid growth in global pharmaceutical demand (especially driven by the aging society's demand for chronic disease medication), support from China's 14th Five Year Plan for the biopharmaceutical industry, and incremental space brought by the rise of the pharmaceutical industry in emerging markets such as the Middle East and Latin America.
The Chinese raw material pharmaceutical industry in 2025 has shifted from "scale expansion" to "high-quality development", and will focus on high value-added products, green production, and global layout in the future. Enterprises with technological advantages, compliance capabilities, and industry chain integration capabilities (such as Huahai Pharmaceutical, Puluo Pharmaceutical, WuXi AppTec, etc.) are expected to dominate in the new round of competition.