On June 17, the Pharmaceutical Business Match-making event, co-hosted by ECHEMI and CPHI China, was held in the overseas visitors’ lounge.
Buyers from 12 countries, including Malaysia, Georgia, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, and Egypt, participated in the event alongside nearly 50 domestic manufacturers of APIs and pharmaceutical intermediates.
Procurement needs covered a wide range of categories, including amino acids and nutritional health products, bulk antibiotics and nervous system drugs, pharmaceutical excipients and solvents, pharmaceutical intermediates, peptides and biologics, and targeted specialty drugs.
The diverse procurement requirements were concentrated in a single match-making session, with inquiries received across different product tiers.
Products such as Semaglutide and Tirzepatide (GLP‑1 class) drew notable interest, while bulk varieties like Amoxicillin and Gabapentin continued to see steady demand.
The Pharmaceutical Business Match-making event followed a rotating one‑on‑one format, with each session lasting 20 to 30 minutes. On‑site discussions focused on document verification, confirmation of procurement conditions, and assessment of supply capabilities. GMP certification, FDA filings, and Certificates of Analysis (COA) were among the key documents most scrutinised by buyers.
Ahead of the event, ECHEMI conducted pre‑qualification and preliminary matching of both parties based on platform transaction data, ensuring that on‑site discussions could directly enter the business phase. Within two hours, multiple groups had progressed from product standard alignment to arranging sample shipments.
During the Pharmaceutical Business Match-making event, ECHEMI interviewed several overseas buyers on site. The respondents indicated that ECHEMI’s precise matching enabled them to encounter more high‑quality suppliers than expected during face‑to‑face talks, significantly broadening their sourcing options. At the same time, many buyers affirmed the stability and regulatory compliance capabilities of China’s supply chain, noting that Chinese companies had reached a level of maturity in both production systems and documentation that lays a solid foundation for long‑term cooperation. These interviews also provided ECHEMI with valuable market feedback, serving as a reference for the platform’s future efforts to refine supply‑demand alignment.
At this year’s Pharmaceutical Business Match-making event, the focus of inquiries from Southeast Asian buyers shifted from antibiotics and antipyretic intermediates to peptides and complex excipients, driven primarily by end‑user demand for weight‑loss and metabolic disease drugs.
At the same time, buyers’ evaluation criteria have become more stringent. Data integrity, audit trail capabilities, and experience with registration in target markets now carry more weight than price alone.
One buyer noted that three years ago, they often had to press suppliers multiple times to obtain impurity profiles and stability data, whereas now suppliers proactively provide such information during initial contacts and show markedly improved familiarity with CEP and FDA certification processes.
The same buyer, who met multiple peptide intermediate suppliers at this event, observed that those suppliers were able to demonstrate both kilogram‑scale supply capabilities and updates on patent progress tracking. In their view, China’s leading API suppliers have already built strong competitive advantages in areas such as peptides.
This Pharmaceutical Business Match-making event consolidated communication steps that are usually scattered across emails, phone calls, and online meetings into one time and one place, helping both supply and demand sides build trust more quickly and giving potential cooperation a clearer path to execution.
Leveraging ECHEMI’s data capabilities and CPHI China’s exhibition resources, the event delivered substantial outcomes and concluded successfully. It not only improved the efficiency of industry negotiations but also opened up reliable cooperation channels for pharmaceutical companies.
