Multinational pharmaceutical companies redefine Chinese market

Source: IFNET 2016-01-25 "in 2016, Sanofi China's basic strategy will focus on chronic disease, grassroots market and drug innovation Among them, chronic disease is our core advantage, while in the primary market, we will expand more areas of community medical centers and retail pharmacies this year " Long Xianli, senior vice president of Sanofi Asia and President of Greater China, disclosed the new year's strategy of the top three multinational company in China's prescription drug market to the first financial daily In the past year, with the accumulation of multiple factors, including bidding price reduction, lagging approval of new drugs, margin events, multinational pharmaceutical companies that have felt the chill of the economic "new normal" have not been very pleased In this case, not only Sanofi, including Novartis, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and other multinational pharmaceutical giants all focus on chronic diseases and grass-roots market, where is the internal logic? The aging market for chronic febrile diseases is based on the progress of disease prevention and control in China (2015) released by the national health and family planning Commission at the end of 2015 》Chronic disease, as a non infectious disease, has the highest mortality rate in China With the coming of aging, the growth of chronic disease market has attracted the attention of health industry, including medicine, medical devices and other related industries The incidence rate of incidence of chronic diseases is high It is understood that the incidence rate of chronic diseases over 65 years old is between 52%~98%, and the incidence rate of 55~64 years old reaches 38%~58% However, the prevalence of chronic diseases in the population aged 35-54 shows that the proportion of chronic diseases in this age group has exceeded 10% According to the statistics of the Ministry of health and the national development and Reform Commission in 2014, at that time, the medical consumption of 260 million chronic patients in China had reached 3 trillion yuan "Aging and urbanization are the main reasons for the sharp increase in the prevalence of chronic diseases In the past two years, the development rate of chronic diseases has increased unabated." Liang Xiaofeng, deputy director of China CDC, said in public In this case, for multinational pharmaceutical companies frustrated by the basic drug market for nearly two years and unwilling to give up China, the world's largest emerging market, chronic diseases and related primary market have become the best choice to improve growth "From 2014 to 2020, Sanofi will have 18 new products to be launched, among which 6 are the key products we are looking forward to One third of these key products are drugs for diabetes treatment " Jiang Ningjun, vice president of global R & D and President of Asia Pacific R & D of Sanofi, said In addition to R & D, these multinational pharmaceutical companies have also extended the tentacles of channel promotion to the Internet, such as developing some mobile medical platforms for closer communication between doctors and patients "Our daily work is not just about drug production, we also need to tell doctors and patients how to use drugs, so as to build mutual stickiness between them, especially for patients with chronic diseases." Long Xianli told reporters As one of the industries most affected by the policies, the primary market is deeply cultivated In 2015, the pharmaceutical industry appeared frequently, and various policies were implemented intensively "In the next year, if there is no significant change, the pressure in the pharmaceutical industry will be greater than this year." Yu Mingde, President of China Pharmaceutical Enterprise Management Association, said that in the context of increasing pressure on the surrounding industries and strong demand for medical insurance cost control, the growth rate of domestic pharmaceutical industry will still be relatively low this year, next year and the next year But long Xianli expressed a different view: "I am still very optimistic about the Chinese market Because I have seen the fundamentals: at present, China's medical expenses still only account for about 5% of GDP At the same time, we have seen that the Chinese government has great determination to build a sustainable medical system in China Secondly, the potential of China's primary medical market is huge It is unsustainable for all patients to go to large hospitals We very much hope to contribute to the reform of China's medical system We have established a grass-roots medical business department, and hope to enter more into China's grass-roots medical market We hope to continue to work in this direction in the future, and hope to learn and explore more There are also retail pharmacies, community medical centers and so on " According to Sanofi's performance in the first three quarters of 2015, its overall sales in the first nine months was about 8.6 billion yuan, with a synchronous growth of 13% in the first three quarters This growth is slightly higher than that of other multinational pharmaceutical companies Analysts believe that Sanofi's product line distribution is concentrated in the field of chronic diseases, and its regional expansion in China's second and third tier market is earlier and deeper than that of other multinational pharmaceutical companies It is the help of the two that complements the downturn in other regional markets But it also faces two-way competition when entering the basic market, and the price has become one of the obstacles that must be faced It is reported that at present, the main market share of multinational pharmaceutical enterprises is in the second and third level hospitals However, after the new version of the basic drug catalog is released, all regions need to stipulate the proportion of basic drugs used by medical institutions at all levels, so that the bid winning price of basic drugs bidding can be directly brought into the bidding of large hospitals, so that the same variety of the same manufacturer is the same price in the whole province After getting used to high gross profit and high profit, how to adjust the strategy to face the grass-roots market with low profit and high turnover is a problem that these multinational pharmaceutical enterprises must consider Although the sales volume of MSD's Shujiang has increased significantly after the sharp price reduction in previous years, whether the final profit can be maintained has not been disclosed by the company In June 2013, Sanofi's and new drug Plavix were forced to withdraw from the local basic drug bidding due to 47% of the "bargain" in Shaanxi Province To trade profits for markets is a strategy that needs to be weighed repeatedly Analysts pointed out that in the county-level pharmaceutical market, due to the factors of region and population, the small input-output ratio between market input and drug sales is a problem that must be faced, and enterprises must continue to invest in the early development, the first of which is the construction of grass-roots business teams.