Pfizer will withdraw from the generic drug market without Chinese buyers

Source: sina.com 2014-3-4 in the next three years, there will be hundreds of drug patents expired in the world, and at the same time, hundreds of billions of dollars of market space will be released According to IMS, a leading global health consulting firm, generic drugs will account for half of the global drug market in 2015 However, Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, is preparing to withdraw from this market In recent years, it is the peak period of drug patent expiration According to public information, there will be as many as 631 patent drugs with a total of US $225 billion expiring in the five years from 2012 to 2016, including Pfizer's star product sildenafil (also known as "Viagra") Pfizer's fourth quarter 2013 financial report shows that: the quarter's net profit decreased by 59%, mainly due to the fierce competition of generic drugs, which has become a "chicken ribs" business Pfizer formally divided the company into three parts at the beginning of this year, among which the "value business" is the generic pharmaceutical sector, which has been heard before and is facing the fate of being sold Pfizer always takes patent medicine as the core, and patent medicine requires enterprises to invest high promotion cost to grab huge profits, which makes the overall operating cost of the company continue to be high Even though the value business division generated nearly 10 billion dollars in revenue last year, the situation has become increasingly difficult However, Pfizer split its internal business, separating mature products from new R & D products, and seeking a way out for generic drugs In an emerging market like China, more and more foreign generics giants are in a dilemma China's pharmaceutical companies have been taking generic drugs as their main products In China's domestic prescription drugs, the proportion of generic drugs has been at about 90% for a long time With the peak of patent expiration this year, China's local generic companies, such as Changshan pharmaceutical, Hengrui pharmaceutical, Laimei pharmaceutical and other companies, are already ready Their heavyweight generic drugs will be approved for listing in 2014, seizing the market Take Pfizer's sildenafil as an example The drug indication patent expired in mid-2014 Changshan pharmaceutical has announced that its sildenafil generic will be listed in August and September later, and will become one of the company's important profit sources in the next three to five years Pfizer's generic business has many coveters Three large global pharmaceutical companies have expressed their purchase intentions on different occasions, and the Department is still profitable Pfizer still has time to slowly find buyers There is no Chinese buyer in Pfizer's generic business On average, 35% of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies in the world with a market of 500 billion have their patents expired between 2009 and 2013 According to Frost & Sullivan, the market size of biosimilars will grow from $1.2 billion last year to $23 billion in 2019 China's generic pharmaceutical industry is in an unprecedented "opportunity period" By 2015, the market size may be nearly 500 billion yuan.