API Manufacturing and the Obvious Prospects

API or Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient is the biologically active substance in a Pharmaceutical drug or pesticide. As the demand of drugs has seen a steady increase over the past decade, so has the demand in API manufacturing. This increase in demand has also seen the expansion in the field of research and development thus, leaving the market greatly saturated.

This growing demand and increased business competition has seen Pharmaceutical Companies take the direction of Asia, more notably, China & India in their quest to find the required API manufacturing done.

While traditionally the market for API Manufacturing was Europe or even South America to some extent, the ever-changing face of the Pharmaceutical Industry has meant that while the requirements of the people have changed, so too has the source of the API.

Effectiveness of these new-found global substitutes in comparison to the already well-established European counterparts cannot and should not be challenged.

If anything, this diversification in API Manufacturing has allowed Drug manufacturers to enjoy a significant cost reduction and more importantly, it has broken the hold of a few market leaders and made the market for API an open one.API Manufacturing has seen somewhat of resurgence in its global outlook.

Besides the demand for newer drugs leading to newer API's and the competition between Pharmaceutical Empires leading to price wars over different generics, this increase in the availability of API has led to newer markets being researched and developed alternatively. The names of China and India are a constant mention because they more than any other, have molded themselves according to this global metamorphosis.

India is the first obvious choice for API manufacturing because of the relatively low-cost and minimum Government restrictions. Even more so, a lot of progress has been made in improving the standard of APIs'. One thing contributing to this is the presence of highly qualified medical personals like Ph.Ds. and Doctors in India. With the research and developments available in India at present, they are dominant force in supplying APIs to the Global market.

China follows closely behind in the quarters of API manufacturing but this is only because of one reason, a late induction to the Global Market. Until quite recently when most of the API industry was in the hands of communists, they mainly concentrated of producing low-cost drugs primarily for the local market. Even though that has changed somewhat, most of the newly equipped and high-tech API manufacturers in China still prefer catering to the need of local Pharmaceutical Manufactures.

Since the API alone does not make the entire content of the Drug, this increase in the quality of API Manufacturing has led to an increase in the desire of more and more Pharmaceutical Manufacturers seeking to outsource other, more diverse substances required in later stages of production as well.

About the Author

With the decline in the demand of Pharmaceutical products unlikely anytime soon, we are likely to come across many ventures involving API Manufacturing companies. This has led to many exciting new projects between traditional Pharmaceutical Companies and API manufacturing institutions.