The soaring cost of medicine leads to the inverse price of Chinese medicine

The reason why the growth rate of profit growth in the pharmaceutical industry has fallen is related to the increase in the cost of medicinal materials. The Chinese medicine industry is even more severely affected by the rising cost of medicinal materials.

Due to fluctuations in the output of Chinese herbal medicines and hype by speculators, some Chinese herbal medicines have doubled in value in the past two years. In 2010 alone, 537 kinds of Chinese herbal medicines in the Chinese market experienced price increases of more than 80%, with an average increase of 109%, with nearly 30% gaining more than half; 96 varieties with more than 100% increase, and 6% varieties with more than 181% increase. 2% of the varieties rose even more than 300%. Among them, Cordyceps expensive than gold, heterophylla, Panax, honeysuckle, Codonopsis all increased a record high. And such a high price continues to this day.

According to the data, Chinese herbal medicines began to rise sharply in the first wave in the second half of 2009. From the beginning of 2009 to the first half of the first half of 2011, the average price of Chinese herbal medicines rose by nearly twice. Today, the prices of heterophylla and Panax pseudoginseng remain high, and 37 per kilogram is still above 600 yuan. On the other hand, Panax notoginseng is the main raw material medicine for traditional Chinese medicines such as Xuesaitong, and many companies are therefore facing the plight of price inversion.

“According to the actual situation, it is not easy for Chinese patent medicines to lower prices, which is very difficult for pharmaceutical companies. This is mainly due to the excessive increase in the cost of medicinal materials in recent years. The phenomenon of the inverted cost of some profit-making products for pharmaceutical companies has appeared. For some time, the profit space of some pharmaceutical companies has actually approached the 'ceiling', and the Chinese medicine industry has thus entered the 'era of low profit'. "There are experts in the Chinese medicine industry who tell reporters. “The increase in raw material and labor costs is an external cause of the sharp drop in profits of the pharmaceutical industry last year,” said Yao Jie, a pharmaceutical industry analyst.

The Chinese medicines whose prices are upside down are many drugs that are routinely used by the general public, such as “Huoxiang Zhengqi Pills” and “Compound Danshen Tablets”. Product losses occur. However, due to the fact that production equipment cannot be idle, companies have to use low production to suppress production. Overcoming difficulties. A sales manager of a pharmaceutical company admits to reporters that there are no less than 70 kinds of “compound Danshen tablets” produced by different manufacturers that have been circulated in the market. Because there is no profit, many companies are now reducing their output and even no longer producing.

In order not to lose money, some pharmaceutical companies have to unload some of the commonly used Chinese medicines that are inexpensive. “The biggest price cut was the original research drug, that is, imported drugs. However, the profit of Chinese medicine has been far lower than that of chemical drugs. How to reduce or how much to reduce, is really not easy to grasp, the price is not well controlled, and some good Chinese medicine varieties even have It is possible to withdraw from the market.” Some industry insiders said that Wu Weihai, an associate researcher who is engaged in industry research, worried about the worse situation. “In order to be able to control costs, quite a few companies have chosen to 'evade' price cuts. Drugs are off the shelf, either 'renamed for surname', or raw materials are added or removed, and then re-packed to maintain profits."