How many pharmaceuticals are there

Single Accounts Corporate Solutions Universities. Published by Matej Mikulic , Sep 10, Top pharmaceutical companies The pharma industry is comprised of some major multinational companies. The company, which has its global headquarters in New York City, generated total revenues of around However, the company saw a heavy drop in revenues in , after the spin-off of its Upjohn generics business. Pharma industry by country Many of the leading pharma companies come from the United States, and, therefore, it is no surprise that the country has the largest national pharmaceutical market worldwide.

China has become one of the main players in the industry, and annual growth rates of the emerging pharma market have been strong in recent years. However, projected pharmaceutical sales show that the established markets of North America and Europe will still be leading the way in This share can be much higher at companies that specialize in research and generate low sales. The discovery of new drugs is vital for the continued growth of pharma companies, and sales of new branded drugs can provide sizeable contributions to total revenues.

However, the loss of patent protection can have serious consequences, and competition from generic drugs is a major challenge for companies. All eyes on pharma and biotech Soon after the COVID pandemic hit the world with full force, it became clear that without new therapies and particularly vaccines the world would be stuck in a permanent cycle of lockdowns and crises.

Chinese firms are also embedded in a network of raw materials and intermediary suppliers, and so have lower shipping and transaction costs for raw materials. They also face fewer environmental regulations regarding buying, handling, and disposing of toxic chemicals, leading to lower direct costs for these firms.

Using traditional pharmaceutical manufacturing technology, a U. However, FDA believes that advanced manufacturing technologies could enable U. Advanced manufacturing is a collective term for new medical product manufacturing technologies that can improve drug quality, address shortages of medicines, and speed time-to-market.

Every field has a different set of production techniques that are considered advanced. Examples of some cross-cutting advanced manufacturing technologies include continuous manufacturing and 3D printing. Advanced manufacturing technology, which FDA supports through its Emerging Technology Program ETP , has a smaller facility footprint, lower environmental impact, and more efficient use of human resources than traditional technology, as will be explained later in this testimony.

The pharmaceutical sector relies heavily on foreign sourcing for critical components, materials, and finished products, as identified in the U. FDA laboratory testing confirmed that the Sichuan Friendly API had inconsistent levels of active ingredients and should not be used to manufacture or compound drugs for patient use.

Risks associated with over- or undertreatment of hypothyroidism could result in permanent or life-threatening adverse health consequences. Taizhou manufactures APIs for repackagers and distributors, some of which sell these products to compounding facilities in the United States.

FDA contacted Taizhou and the company confirmed that, due to the level of controls in the manufacturing process, the baclofen API it manufactures was not suitable for use in injectable drugs. The affected API potentially could have posed serious safety risks for U. There was also a potential risk that the baclofen API might have been contaminated by endotoxin or microorganisms. From a national security perspective, it is useful to look at the locations of facilities for three sets of drugs:.

S market. The APIs manufactured in these facilities may be used in prescription drugs brand or generic , OTC drugs, and compounded drugs. For all regulated drugs, China has 13 percent of the API manufacturing facilities, while the United States has 28 percent , and the rest of the world has 59 percent. See Figure 2 However, the percentages of APIs produced at these facilities may differ, and as mentioned above, cannot be determined from the data available to FDA. This list includes application and non-application products across a wide range of therapeutic categories such as anesthetic, antibacterial, antidepressant, antiviral, cardiovascular, anti-diabetic, and gastrointestinal agents.

See Figure 3. The three medicines are: capreomycin and streptomycin, both indicated to treat Mycobacterium tuberculosis; and sulfadiazine, used to treat chancroid and trachoma. Given the sway that Big Pharma has with the administration, the industry has no plans to reduce prescription drug prices or reverse past price gouging.

For his part, President Trump tried but failed to pass the American Health Care Act of , which would have hurt millions of Americans while benefiting the pharmaceutical industry, among others. Department of Health and Human Services 78 at the beginning of the following year. Although the Trump administration keeps promising to lower drug prices, drug costs continue to climb as Americans suffer and pharmaceutical companies profit and their CEOs line their pockets.

The government-funded research and major tax benefits that these pharmaceutical companies enjoy help them stay profitable. Meanwhile, they continue to hike up the costs of drugs, particularly life-sustaining drugs such as insulin.

Big Pharma can play this game indefinitely, benefiting from this culture of corruption, using allies in the administration and in Congress to grow their profit margins while everyday people suffer. But there are steps lawmakers can take to reduce the influence of special interests, including Big Pharma. Banning lobbyists from fundraising 80 for candidates would reduce special-interest influence over the legislative process.

Another way to limit corrupting conflicts of interest is to ban members of Congress from accepting campaign donations from entities under the jurisdiction of the committees on which the serve. It is understood that conflicts can easily arise from committee contributions, which explains why 88 percent of voters support this prohibition. Proposals to do so include a lifetime lobbying ban on members of Congress and a five-year lobbying ban on senior congressional staffers.

As Americans are caught trying to decide whether to pay for rent or medicine, pharmaceutical companies continue to reap government benefits. Reducing drug prices and the costs that everyday people must pay is not possible without fixing the broken system in Washington. Hauwa Ahmed is a research assistant for Democracy and Government at the Center. Igor Volsky , Michele L. Maggie Jo Buchanan. Liz Kennedy , Danielle Root. Insulin facts Access to insulin for patients with Type 1 diabetes is a matter of life or death.

Eli Lillyannounced 12 in March that it would begin selling a generic version of its Humalog insulin at half the price. But for the world as a whole, mortality from HIV only fell from the mids, when anti-retrovirals became more widely available in the global south. In contrast to some of the doomsday fears of what might happen amid a global public health crisis, China has not yet issued any restriction or ban on export of medical goods. Although often framed in the US as an unhealthy dependency on China, what is often overlooked is that China also relies on the US and major European countries for some of its medicines.

This inter-dependence in pharmaceuticals, rather than dependence, means China may not be as quick to putting up a seal around its border as some thought. The dependencies and inter-dependencies of globalisation have been exposed by the COVID pandemic — and nowhere more so than in the pharmaceutical industry.

Whether it be hydroxychloroquine, favipiravir, remdesivir or something else, it is unclear which drug, if any, will work. It may be a vaccine. While it may be an American company or an Oxford lab that is hailed as a hero for a treatment or prevention, the task is not just about discovering a treatment or vaccine that works, but making it available to as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. Successful accomplishment of that task — especially in the global south — is difficult to envisage without Chinese and Indian involvement.

COVID ignores borders and the solutions to address it will need to overcome them too. For you: more from our Insights series :. Lockdown lessons from the history of solitude. What will the world be like after coronavirus? Four possible futures. The end of the world: a history of how a silent cosmos led humans to fear the worst.

Subscribe to our newsletter. Chinese Collections in the City online — Manchester, Manchester. Edition: Available editions United Kingdom. Become an author Sign up as a reader Sign in. Rory Horner , University of Manchester.