Chinese medicine innovation, further
Following Astrazeneca's cooperation with Chengdu High-tech Zone to build a TCM innovation industry base, Astrazeneca has also chosen to cooperate with Tianjin Pharmaceutical Research Institute to further develop in the field of TCM.
Astrazeneca Pharma (Chengdu) Co LTD and Tianjin Pharmaceutical Research Institute signed a strategic cooperation agreement at the "2022 Western Smart Healthcare Industry Summit" on Nov 2.
Astrazeneca Chengdu International Life Science Innovation Park focuses on TCM inheritance and provides incubation platform and business support for innovative enterprises. In April, Astrazeneca's innovation base focusing on traditional Chinese medicine officially opened in Chengdu. Astrazeneca has said that the TCM innovation industrial base jointly built with Chengdu High-tech Zone will help Astrazeneca focus on the modernization and innovative development of TCM and promote international exchanges.
Six months later, Astrazeneca chose to increase its TCM innovation through cooperation again. The two sides said the cooperation will help accelerate the production of traditional Chinese medicine.
The cooperation with astrazeneca in tianjin institute of drug, has been in the domestic leader in the development and the development of modern Chinese medicine, independent research and development and access to new drug certificate 41, with available kyushin pills, cassia twig tuckahoe capsule, infantile loosened up clear heat particles, notoginseng tong shu capsule, three of the four seasons such as the yellow soft capsule varieties for industrialization enterprises bring good social benefit and economic value.
How much benefit can large varieties of traditional Chinese medicine bring to enterprises?
Take quick-effect lifesaving pill as an example. As the core variety of Jinyao Darentang, it is the national protected variety of traditional Chinese medicine and essential Chinese patent medicine for emergency in national hospitals of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and has been included in the national Essential Medicine list and National Medical Insurance list. In 2021, the annual sales revenue of Quick-effect rescue pills reached 1.3 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 9.47%.
It can be seen that if similar TCM varieties can be produced through cooperation, Astrazeneca will bring considerable benefits.
However, it is not easy for pharmaceutical companies to create large varieties.
Dong Zecheng, marketing director of a domestic pharmaceutical company, said to Cyberan that under the normal collection, it is very difficult for enterprises to build more than 100 million varieties as before, and now many of the large varieties are achieved in the period of rapid growth of medicine.
What might Astrazeneca do with Chinese medicine
For Astrazeneca, it has some experience in Chinese medicine.
In 2019, Astrazeneca signed an agreement with Luye Pharmaceutical Group, officially announcing the exclusive promotion rights of Xuezhikang capsules in mainland China.
As the first time for a large multinational pharmaceutical company to get full authority to promote innovative prescription Chinese patent drugs independently developed by Chinese pharmaceutical companies in China, Xuezhikang's market performance has lived up to expectations. From 2019 to the end of 2021, the sales volume of Xuezhikang increased by nearly 120%, becoming the third largest lipid-lowering brand in the overall statin and lipid-lowering Chinese patent medicine market.
The Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolic Division is one of the four business segments of Astrazeneca in China. Xuzhikang Capsule (0.3g) is one of the five products of Astrazeneca's China website "Cardiovascular Field".
Dong Zecheng believes that multinational pharmaceutical companies do not arbitrarily choose product lines in the research and development of traditional Chinese medicine. They will match resources in their existing product pipelines. For example, Astrazeneca has a certain research and development and market foundation in cardiovascular pipeline itself. It is highly likely that Astrazeneca will also develop in this direction when doing research and development of traditional Chinese medicine, and form synergy between chemical drugs and traditional Chinese medicine in the future.
Astrazeneca reported revenue of $22.2 billion for the first half of 2022, up 48% from the same period last year. Revenue in China fell slightly to about $3.057 billion due to the impact of procurement, health care negotiations and the pandemic.
It is self-evident that pharmaceutical policies such as purchasing with quantity have exerted an impact on the development of pharmaceutical companies, which may be one of the reasons why Astrazeneca chose to deploy TCM in China.
"The country has been vigorously supporting the development of TCM, and multinational pharmaceutical companies also want to do some TCM development. Because of its good promotion resources, multinational pharmaceutical companies have certain advantages in the R&D and innovation of TCM. But at the same time, we should also be aware that the logic of TCM promotion is not the same as that of chemical medicine." The above pharmaceutical enterprises further pointed out.
Multinational pharmaceutical companies are making inroads into TCM
In recent years, with the help of many favorable national policies, TCM inheritance and innovation have entered a new stage. In the next five years, the market size of China's TCM industry will maintain a compound annual growth rate of about 14.2% and continue to grow at a high speed. By 2025, the market size is expected to reach 5 trillion yuan.
Under the background of mass procurement, the situation of "internal roll-up" of chemical drugs is becoming more and more prominent. Based on this, many multinational pharmaceutical companies choose to seek breakthroughs in the hope of TCM.
In addition to Astrazeneca, Sanofi, Boehringer Ingelheim and other multinational pharmaceutical companies have also established a presence in the TCM industry.
For example, in 2014, Boehringer Ingelheim and GFC entered into a partnership to promote GFC's Seven Star Tea syrup for children. In 2015, Boehringer Ingelheim announced the launch of its first OTC Chinese patent medicine product, LeKotone.
According to industry insiders, there are three stages for multinational pharmaceutical companies to enter the TCM field, namely the raw material purchase period, the market wait-and-see period and the in-depth cooperation period. Considering the performance of all parties, the development has reached the third stage.
In August this year, children's Chinese patent medicine leading Jianmin Group issued an announcement that its wholly-owned subsidiary Ye Kaitai Chinese Medicine Co., Ltd. will cooperate with Ping 'an Jincun village to establish a new Chinese patent medicine joint venture "Jincun Jianmin Pharmaceutical". Ping An Tsugura is a joint venture between Ping An Life Insurance of China and Tsugura of Japan, with Tsugura of Japan holding 56% of shares and absolute control of Ping An Tsugura. Layer upon layer equity calculation, the establishment of the "Tsumura Jianmin pharmaceutical" will be the actual control of Japan Tsumura.
Tsumura is the giant of Japanese Chinese medicine. Since its entry into China in 1991, it has gradually improved the industrial chain from the cultivation, processing and production of traditional Chinese medicine raw materials. This is its first foray into the field of Chinese patent medicine.
According to public data, Tsumura's revenue exceeded 100 billion yen in 1991, but it only rose to 130.8 billion yen in 2020. Given the time span, this is relatively slow growth. Therefore, the industry said that Jincun chose to cooperate with Jianmin, it is likely to be in order to open up the Chinese market layout, in order to achieve new profit growth.
Large multinational pharmaceutical companies such as Astrazeneca and Zimun have entered the field of TCM, which has triggered widespread debate in the industry.
Some supporters believe that the above multinational pharmaceutical companies have strong financial resources and strong brand advantages, and their products are highly recognized by the society, which is conducive to hospital sales. Opponents argue that traditional Chinese medicine is a treasure of Chinese civilization and that handing it over to multinational companies could easily lead to the outflow of secret state recipes.
Some experts told Cyberlan that from the technical level, the advanced experience of multinational pharmaceutical companies in drug research and development can help the TCM industry to solve the problems of quality standards, efficacy principle and other aspects. In addition, multinational pharmaceutical companies entering the field of traditional Chinese medicine can produce "catfish effect", forcing the Chinese pharmaceutical industry forward.
But he said the Chinese have a special attachment to traditional Chinese medicine, so the packaging of the products is kept in the original style as much as possible to avoid patients' backlash and hurt sales.
