While international pharmaceutical companies are facing tight production capacity and high manufacturing process costs for APIs, Taiwan's API manufacturers have gained a cost advantage and have recently enjoyed the benefits of order transfer, which has resulted in a simultaneous expansion of their market share. Formosa Laboratories has received orders from international pharmaceutical companies for vitamin D derivatives, and Ertapenem, an antibiotic under Savior Lifetec Corporation (SLC), has been included in TFDA's substitution programme, which is expected to account for more than half of the domestic market share next year.
Although international pharmaceutical companies have a certain market share, the production of related APIs is difficult to reduce manufacturing costs, production capacity is not competitive and other problems, some pharmaceutical companies have even withdrawn from the field of APIs, and Taiwan's APIs have grabbed a higher market share with their cost advantage.
It is understood that Teva is the first pharmaceutical company to produce Vitamin D derivatives as an API; Teva used to produce Vitamin D derivatives as an API for downstream pharmaceutical companies, but due to the high cost of raw materials and production, the downstream pharmaceutical companies have switched to placing orders with Formosa Laboratories.
The market share of Formosa Laboratories's phosphate products in Europe is gradually expanding, and both parties have signed a five-year long-term contract, with the annual order volume increasing by at least 20% compared with the past, and with the shipment of phosphate products from China, the new production line of phosphate products will be brought forward to September, when it commences operation, and it will become a full-scale producer and seller.
In recent years, Savior Lifetec has vertically integrated from APIs to pharmaceuticals. Due to the tight production capacity of Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), the original manufacturer of the antibiotic Ertapenem, TFDA not only suggested that hospitals should use Savior Lifetec's products as an alternative, but also agreed to increase the price of the healthcare premiums, and it is anticipated that Savior Lifetec has a chance to gain more than half of the market share in Taiwan next year.
As for the U.S. market, the market share of Ertapenem has already exceeded 20%. If the company makes full use of its production capacity advantage, U.S. customers estimate that the sales volume of GPOs (collective purchasing organisations of hospitals) will grow by more than 50% next year.
