In the context of centralized procurement, innovative drugs have become the main trend in the pharmaceutical industry, and R&D strength also represents the core competitiveness of a pharmaceutical company.
Traditional chemical drugs and generic drug companies are transforming into innovative drugs, either increasing investment in research and development, or directly acquiring innovative pharmaceutical companies. Innovative listed companies can be valued at more than 100 times, while generic drug companies can only be valued at 20 to 30 times. Therefore, these companies neither want to lose in the product market nor lose in the capital market.
However, medical innovation is not an easy task. It requires long-term accumulation and is very expensive. Moreover, the risks of innovative drugs are much greater than those of generic drugs. Once research and development fails or falls behind competitors, it will be difficult to recover R&D investment. It is for this reason that leading pharmaceutical companies have established barriers to keep the strong strong.
In the R&D strength ranking of pharmaceutical companies shared today, 6 companies including Hengrui, Fosun, Chia Tai Tianqing, Qilu, Dongguang Pharmaceutical, and Kelun Pharmaceutical have been firmly in the industry since 2017. Top ten. They have successfully left behind the vast majority of their competitors, and this gap will only grow wider, making it difficult to counterattack.
From the perspective of the global competitive landscape, our innovative drugs are only in their infancy. So far, we have only two completely self-developed innovative drugs that have received FDA certification. The first is BeiGene’s new drug zanubrutinib, which took seven years to develop. It was officially approved by the US FDA for marketing in November 2019; in December of the same year, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group’s patented hypertension drug levamlodipine maleate (Xuanrutinib) Ning) became the second Chinese innovative drug approved by the FDA. After this, we did not see a third drug approved by the FDA.
There are more and more domestic companies involved in the research and development of innovative drugs, but as of the third quarter of 2020, our own company has not yet been seen among the top 100 innovative drug companies in the world. On the one hand, the number of innovative companies is increasing, and on the other hand, many innovative pharmaceutical companies have not yet achieved profitability. This has become the main reason why many people question the bubble of innovative drugs.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Innovative research and development is inherently high investment, high risk and high output. Since the development of innovative drugs is encouraged, we cannot still use the yardstick of traditional pharmaceutical companies to measure innovative pharmaceutical companies. Our late start in innovative drugs is determined by national conditions, and this backwardness is only temporary. I believe that Chinese pharmaceutical companies will soon be among the top 100 in the world.
Tip: The above content is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. The companies mentioned in this article are only examples and do not constitute recommendations. There are risks in the stock market, so investment needs to be cautious.