Strength to strength

API China and Interphex China Spring 2011 was held in Chengdu from 21 to 23 April. The event was co-located with PharmChina covering a total exhibiting area of 100,000 square meters. Held on a massive scale, the events filled all nine halls of the New International Convention and Exhibition Center Chengdu Century City. Exhibitor numbers totalled more than 3500 and there were more than 80,000 categories of products on show.

Billed as the one-stop procurement service and information exchange platform for pharmaceutical ingredients and packaging/ processing equipment, machinery and materials in Asia Pacific, API China and Interphex China proved once again that the Chinese pharmaceutical market is flourishing. Latest statistics from show organizer Reed Sinopharm Exhibitions show that China has 22 percent of the world's market share in the pharmaceutical industry with annual growth rates of between 15 to 16 percent. API exports have reached USD10 billion and all in all, the country is the world's fifth largest pharmaceutical manufacturing market.

From packaging materials to capsule production, Pharma Asia's visit to various exhibitors yielded a myriad of views from different segments of the industry.

Innovation is key

Jiangsu Hualan New Pharmaceutical Material Co Ltd, originally called Jiangyin Lanling Bottle Stopper Co Ltd, was first established in 1992 with its headquarters located in Shengang Town, Jiangyin New Harbour City, Jiangsu. After decades of development, the company has been transformed into a modernized national hightech enterprise specializing in manufacturing packaging materials using advanced technologies. Now, it has reported registered capital of RMB 110 million and total assets of over RMB 800 million.

Hua Guo Ping, Chairman of the company, said: "Technology innovation is key for our company. We provide packaging materials for Big Pharma companies like Pfizer in China and we plan to become their supplier worldwide. We seek safer and more effective pharmaceutical packaging for domestic new drugs under the assistance and cooperation of professional institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences."

"Human life is the number one priority so we contribute towards better human health," Hua added. "With the development of China, the pharmaceutical industry should develop as well. We are going to narrow the gap between the top companies of the world and us by learning from those companies that excel. Since the year 2000, we have spent RMB 20 million on R&D, accounting for 35 to 37 percent of our total expenditure."

The company is mainly engaged in the manufacturing and distribution of rubber stoppers for transfusion, frozen powder, sterile powder, blood collection, three-piece soft bag, three-piece plastic bottle and compound Chinese medicinal preparation. As a leading provider of butyl rubber for pharmaceutical packaging in the Asia Pacific region and China, the company said it is committed to shortening the gap on technology, process and formula, especially butyl compound (PET) film -- developing rubber stoppers for cephalosporin antibiotic and searching for new pharmaceutical packaging material for substituting Teflon film.

In June, 2009, the company shared responsibility with the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Health and State Food and Drug Administration in supporting the state science and technology support program in the "eleventh five-year plan".

Moving up the value chain

Shanxi Guangsheng Medicinal Capsule Co Ltd specializes in the production of encapsulants. The site area of the company covers 65,000 square meters with a total investment is RMB 180 million. All the workshops and facilities were built according to the GMP standard. It is one of the biggest capsule production bases. In recent years, the company has steadily accelerated its development and built a scientific modern management system in order to cooperate with pharmaceutical partners at the highest level.

Henry Xu, Sales Director, South China Region, said: "We intend to be the leading gelatin capsule manufacturer in China. We started nearly 30 years ago in 1983 in hard gelatine capsule manufacturing. It was all manual then without any automation. In 1991, we started our first automated hard capsule manufacturing (HCM) line. In 1998, we imported from Canada advanced HCM machines. In 2005, our total sales reached 10 billion capsules. Today, our sales have reached 20 billion pieces and we have 58 HCM machines in our Shanxi plant. We export our products to North America and Europe as well."

"Our products have been manufactured with high reliability and is suited for different kinds of capsule filling machines," added Xu. "Our production lines meet GMP requirements 100 percent. In order to ensure high quality products, we utilize an internal quality control system to inspect incoming raw materials. This year, we started processing with ET03 standard. We have also introduced an extended pharma packing segment. So the company is growing step-by-step."

"Besides capsules, we intend to build up a new business in high quality products which we started last year. Our customers include Glaxo Smith Kline," Xu concluded. "We have also received technical support from American Biotechnology Corporation for the advanced production of HPMC products."

Towards better health

Sirio Pharma Co Ltd is an integrated contract manufacturer for dietary supplements, providing wide range of products in different dosage forms. Established in 1993, the company was formerly called Xianle Pharmacy Co Ltd and started in drug manufacturing. Years of experience in this field has helped the company understand GMP requirements and form an established system. In 1999, aware of fast-growing demand in the dietary supplement market; Sirio began to provide contract manufacturing services for OEM companies.

Frank Lee, Marketing Director, said: "We have attained various certifications including those from the Chinese government for food and pharmaceuticals. We also have certifications that enable us to meet standards in Europe and the US in order to enlarge our exports. Our transition to manufacturing dietary supplements was smooth because we have R&D capabilities in drug manufacturing. The only difference is instead of producing products for people with diseases, now we are focusing on healthy people that want to have a balanced diet."

"We produce eight billion dietary capsules per year and export our products to countries in North America like the US and Canada, European countries as well as East Asia," added Lee. In terms of expansion, right now the domestic market is growing faster than those abroad. We manufacture both drugs and dietary supplements in our Guangdong facility. The next step for us to become a leading company worldwide will require us to put more effort into R&D."

Knowledge growth

Founded in 2001, Austar Pharmaceutical Packaging Material Group is a manufacturer of packaging components and the GMP and Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Technology and Equipment Forum.

Already in its fifth edition, the Sino-India Partnership Program (SIPP) at API/Interphex China sought to bring a closer relationship between China's and India's pharmaceutical industry, as well as present new business opportunities for participants from both countries. For participants to a half-day SIPP seminar entitled "Business Opportunities and Technology Innovation" held on 22 April, it proved to be an invaluable learning experience about commercial and technological issues from leading industry players from India who have extensive experience in China. Topics included Registration of products at DCGI and Roadmap to the Indian pharmaceutical industry.