Optimization of export structure of cephalosporin APIs from January to July 2020

As a major producer and exporter of cephalosporin APIs, my country's export scale of related products has continued to grow in recent years. From 2015 to 2019, the export value increased from 436 million US dollars to 587 million US dollars, a cumulative increase of 35%. The export value in July was US$367 million, an increase of 9% year-on-year.

Among the cephalosporins exported by my country, ceftriaxone, cefazolin, cephalexin, cefotaxime, Cefoperazone and cephalosporin intermediates such as GCLE, 7-ACA and 7-ADCA occupy a major position. Ceftriaxone has always been the largest export product among China's cephalosporin APIs, and its export proportion has remained above 30% throughout the year, reaching 35% at the highest level in 2017; ceftriaxone mother core intermediates are the second largest export category in 2018. Once accounted for nearly 30% of China’s cephalosporin API exports, it was mainly exported to India, Italy, Pakistan and other countries. The local production of cefuroxime axetil, cefixime, cefaclor, cephalexin, ceftriaxone and other APIs or Further processing into pharmaceutical preparations; Cefazolin, Cefotaxime, and Cephalexin together account for 15%-20% of exports.

In 2019, when the total export value of cephalosporin APIs achieved a growth rate of 9%, the export value of cephalosporin parent core intermediates decreased by 20%, and the proportion shrank to 21%. The export value continued to shrink from January to July 202033 %, accounting for only 14%, and simultaneous exports to major export destination countries have decreased. On the contrary, most of the other cephalosporin APIs have achieved positive growth, and the export structure of this category of APIs has continued to optimize.

The reasons are that the supply of cephalosporin parent core intermediates in the market has continued to increase in the past two years, export prices have dropped significantly, and the export momentum of enterprises has weakened; second, the main producing countries of cephalosporin APIs such as India and Italy have been seriously affected by the local epidemic. A certain degree of suspension of production and production has led to a reduction in the demand for Chinese cephalosporin core intermediates; third, due to supply stability considerations, some international end customers have transferred their cephalosporin API purchase orders to China to enable China to produce and export related APIs increase.