In our country, people’s staple food is rice and noodles, which are foods with relatively high sugar content. Compared with other European and American people who mainly eat meat, the problem of blood sugar after meals is more prominent. This makes α-glycosidase inhibitor anti-diabetic drugs more in line with the needs of the Chinese people. Therefore, this type of anti-diabetic drugs accounts for about 30% of the entire anti-diabetic drug market share. However, the first-generation acarbose is still the most commonly used in China. Later, the second-generation miglitol was used very rarely, and not many people even knew about it. What is the reason for this?
In terms of effects alone, various evidences show that the second-generation miglitol is better than acarbose, and there is no difference between the two in terms of adverse reactions. However, it is not the effect of the drug itself that determines whether a drug is widely used, but is also affected by many factors. Miglitol and acarbose are typical examples.
The original research of these two drugs comes from Bayer in Germany. After Bayer developed miglitol, considering that it has similar efficacy to acarbose and the gap is not very big, there is no Spend money to promote it, but you must know that the clinical application of a drug actually requires a lot of manpower and material resources. First, let their academic specialists learn it, and then use them to train doctors on how to use it, precautions, etc.
Secondly, pharmaceutical companies also need to actively promote their participation in the formulation of various guidelines and expert knowledge. This is very important for doctors to use drugs, because once a drug is included in the guidelines, doctors will You will be more assured when applying it, because if something goes wrong, the guidance and expert knowledge will be a gold medal for immunity from liability. There are no guideline recommendations. Once there is a problem with medication, doctors will inevitably bear some responsibility, especially when the doctor-patient relationship in China is so tense. Doctors tend to be more cautious.
Bayer invested more resources in acarbose because of its early market launch advantage. However, after miglitol was launched, it occupied a disadvantaged position. This drug was not even sold in China until domestic manufacturers put it into production and put it on the market.
There are currently three domestic miglitol manufacturers. Among them, Shandong New Era Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Lunan Pharmaceutical, is a relatively large pharmaceutical company with a relatively high reputation in the industry. Influence, and domestic raw materials for miglitol are mainly produced by them. Although Lunan still invested energy in promoting miglitol, it was more difficult because it was not only a problem of resources, but also faced competition with acarbose. So this evolved into a game between domestic pharmaceutical companies and foreign pharmaceutical companies. Obviously, domestic pharmaceutical companies suffered more.
Therefore, although miglitol is better than acarbose, it does not mean that it sells well because of its efficacy. After all, drugs are also commodities, and there are often some complex business logic behind the commodities. become a key factor in their widespread application.