Hengrui entered the top 20 for the first time. How big is the gap between Chinese and American pharmaceutical companies?

Recently Hengrui pharmaceutical market value for the first time into the world's top 20, gratifying congratulations. The medical industry in our country is developing in full swing, but there is still a certain gap with the United States undeniably. So what are the main aspects of the gap? How big is the gap between Chinese and American pharmaceutical companies?

Market value contrast, the gap is wide

From the data, although there are more listed Chinese pharmaceutical companies, there is still a big gap in the overall market value of Chinese pharmaceutical companies compared with American pharmaceutical companies. American pharmaceutical companies monopolized 6 of the top 10, and took the top four, while China's leading pharmaceutical Hengrui also entered the top 20 for the first time.

On the whole, for the US pharmaceutical companies, the market value of more than 100 billion yuan is like "ordinary", there can be dozens of random, but China is less than 10. Therefore, the wide gap between Chinese and American pharmaceutical companies can also be seen from the comparison of market value of pharmaceutical companies.

Research and development and sales investment comparison

In the list of the World's Top 50 pharmaceutical Companies in 2022, 16 were from the US and 4 were from China, but the ranking was relatively low. Hengrui Pharmaceutical ranked the highest at 32nd.

From the data, we can see that, first of all, for the top 20 enterprises in sales, sales easily broke 10 billion dollars, and the country's largest Hengrui pharmaceutical is only about 5 billion dollars, so there is a large difference in sales.

In addition, it can be seen from the data that most of the R&D of American pharmaceutical companies is between 20% and 30%, and more can even reach 40%, while the highest rate of China Hengrui Pharmaceutical is 17.86%, and that of Shanghai Pharmaceutical is only 6.21%. From this data, we can see the attitude of American pharmaceutical enterprises and Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises towards R&D investment. The United States attaches great importance to R&D, while China does not. In the long run, America's pipeline of new drugs will naturally grow and blossom.

At first glance, the proportion of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises is higher, but a closer look is the proportion of sales and management expenses of American pharmaceutical enterprises and Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises. According to the data, the sales and administrative expenses of Chinese pharmaceutical companies all reach an astonishing 40%~50%, while the sales and administrative expenses of American pharmaceutical companies are mostly 20%~30%. Combined with the data, we can see that most Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises are light research and development but heavy sales.

Number of new drugs approved

The detailed number of new drugs approved in our country and the United States in recent years. From the perspective of quantity alone, it seems that there is no obvious disadvantage in the approval of new drugs in China, and to some extent in the past two years, there is a trend of reversal, but it is not true. Taking 2022 as an example, although 49 new drugs were approved in China, 30 of them were imported, while 19 were domestic. Therefore, excluding imported drugs, the number of new drugs on the market in China is about half of that in the US, with a certain quantity gap.

Single pharmaceutical king sales ranking

In the list of global drug sales in 2022, the United States monopolizes the top eight places for single products, and the top 100 drugs of American pharmaceutical companies account for more than half of the drugs, while Chinese drugs are not included. Therefore, from the point of view of the current drug sales list, the gap between Chinese and American pharmaceutical companies is also large. Domestic drugs are less variety, followed by the masses more recognized import drugs. It is hoped that more good drugs can be developed in the future, so as to shorten the international gap and improve the confidence of national drug use.

Pipeline quantity

In terms of ranking, four of the top ten American pharmaceutical companies were in the list. BMS and Pfizer had the most R&D pipelines, with 179 and 170 kinds of R&D pipelines respectively. At present, the largest number of Hengrui Pharmaceutical is 105, followed by Shiyao Group 64 and China Biopharmaceutical 60. So there is a gap in the number of pipelines.

summary

Considering the above comparative data, we have to admit that there is still a great gap between Chinese medicine and American medicine. What we can do is to increase investment in research and development, scientific research and innovation, improve regulations, policies and guidelines, and not blindly converge on the same track. Only in this way can we continuously shorten the gap with the American pharmaceutical industry, and not be left further and further away.a