WHO (World Health Organization) has characterized novel coronavirus as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. This present pandemic has led to an intolerable impact on both the health and pharmaceutical structure which has ultimately created an ultimate issue on patients’ health.
APIs are the effective ingredient present in the medicine, and even small amount of active ingredients known to produce effective result. APIs are either used as single dose or as mixed dose combination in order to produce an effective medicine. However, raw materials are confused with the APIs used for making medicine, but the raw materials are the substances which are used for manufacturing of APIs and the chemical compound used for making the raw material is called as an intermediate. Even more than 10 kinds of intermediate chemical compounds are used for manufacturing of a single API. In order to manufacture API, the manufacturer has to first develop the chemical compound at first which is used for further processing of APIs. These API molecules are formed in large sized reactors. After manufacturing, these APIs are checked for purity and their effectiveness as API market is such a huge market and has a great application in the medical field there is a huge demand of close monitoring of manufacturing process. But due to continuous pandemic of COVID-19 and long term shut down has put an adverse effect on overall drug manufacturing companies. The government of several countries has reported that there is huge scarcity of APIs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The reason behind that is the barrier across the countries border that has an ultimatum effect over the import and export facilities of medicinal product among others.
As the Indian pharmaceutical industry is largely dependent upon the China for procurement of APIs, as China is the first global leader involved in the manufacturing of low cost APIs. This has been reported that approximately 70% of APIs raw materials are imported from China to India. But the continuous pandemic of COVID-19 and barrier across the borders have a massive effect on export of good from one country to another and has led to the scarcity of APIs in India, the U.S. and the U.K. among other countries. As India is the world’s third largest supplier of low-cost and affordable generic drugs to millions of people all over the world and operates about 250 the U.S. FDA, the U.K Medicine and Healthcare product Regulatory Agency approved plants. Hence any impact on Indian APIs pharmaceutical industry led to a negative impact on overall global APIs manufacturing plants.
The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has enormous impact on global pharmaceutical market involving APIs among others. The demand for APIs is on surge across the globe because of increasing prevalence of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) all over the world and demand of effective treatment options.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an immense increase in cost of drugs due to rising demand of drugs for treatment of several kinds of disease including HIV, cancer, epilepsy, malaria among others.
For instance,
This signifies that price of APIs hiked due to continuous coronavirus outbreak.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many organizations’ business environment; supply availability of various drugs has been hampered due to a large number of issues, including import and export restrictions across the countries, and continuous lockdowns that have forced suppliers to (temporarily) shut down the manufacturing facilities and supply capabilities. China occupies a predominant position in the global APIs market. China has secured a considerable market share of APIs market at global level and it exports about 17.87% of vitamin APIs among others to other countries.
Moreover, this has been reported that European pharmaceutical companies also rely on India for manufacturing of their products and India is largely dependent on China for 70% of APIs.
Since 1990, the U.S. is heavily relied on India and China for manufacturing of pharmaceutical products among others because China provides cheaper ingredients and those are not subjected to that much high regulatory rules and laws.
Moreover this has been projected out that UNICEF procures most of the pharmaceutical products from China and India and few of them from Europe as well. For Vitamin, a capsule containing Retinol UNICEF and CIK depend on same supplier and also procures from Canada.
Moreover, as the market players are totally aware of the loss that they may likely to suffer due to disruption of supply chain, they are continuously monitoring their product supplies and manufacturing capabilities in order to prevent the loss to their overall business.
For instance,
This signifies that COVID-19 is disrupting the supply chain of APIs, it is also restricting the procurement procedure of APIs from different sources among other factors but several initiatives are taken by the manufacturers and government organizations is creating a hope for the improvement of supply chain of APIs.
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is one of the infectious diseases caused by a SARS-CoV-2 virus and has affected and still affecting a large pool of the population worldwide. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) causes acute respiratory illness ranges from mild to severe pneumonia along with respiratory failure. As there is no specific and approved treatment to treat the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the need of effective treatment is at high demand. Due to these all affirmative factors there is direct requirement of APIs for drugs manufacturing, which is indicating the future huge demand of API.
By recognizing the actual as well as prompt increase in customer demand or to anticipated prospective increase in customer demand, healthcare organization as well as government bodies’ calls on industry to increase manufacturing of APIs.
Moreover, several initiatives are taken by the government in order to meet the demand of drug manufacturing.
For instance,
TABLE 1. WORLD –WIDE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE PHARMACEUTICAL SECTOR
IMPACT |
Interventions |
|
Middle East |
EU Countries |
U.S |
Short Term Impact |
Induced Demands and Medication Shortage |
COVID-19 Related |
Increased in 10% of OTC category (cough and cold) drugs
Increase 403% in Personal Hygiene |
Increase in 10% of OTC category (vitamins, minerals among others) Increase in 62% of personal hygiene |
Investigational treatments have seen a 2-fold increase Medicines used in hospitals for the treatment of COVID-19 have increased between 100% and 700% since January 2020. |
|
|
General Like Panic Buying |
Increase in 67% of ICU Medications Increase in 23% of Lipid lowering drugs |
Increase in 7% of highest volume growth in ATCN class of Rx- category in Spain |
Excess of prescription for hypertension, mental health, respiratory, diabetes |
The increasing prescriptions for several kinds of illness including respiratory illness, mental illness among others has led to scarcity of drugs and API molecules used for drug manufacturing. Disproportionately high COVID-19 patient volumes putting strain on scarce drugs. Henceforth, it is estimated that global API market anticipated to boom up in the forecasted period.
Sudden voluminous demand of APIs in order to fight against the COVID-19 has led the manufacturers to take several strategic initiatives. Large number of population affected with this COVID-19 virus and expanding spread across the world from last few months has enhanced the need of effective treatment options. To deal with the COVID-19 outbreak challenges, many APIs manufacturers are creating new strategies. To meet an actual as well as prompt increase in customer demand or to anticipated prospective increase in customer demand APIs market players are exclusively concentrating on gaining the production capacity. It is predicted that these strategies are anticipated to escalate up the company revenue and its growth in the forecasted period.
For instance;
This signifies that various strategic initiatives adopted by the companies allow them to attain a lucrative growth even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is predicted that the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has significant impact on the growth of global APIs market due to huge elevation in the demand of APIs. Moreover, many government and healthcare organization (United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), partners and World Health Organization are exclusively focusing on the supply of APIs and its manufacturing due to priorities and essential requirement in this crucial period. Moreover, several clinical trials also expected to provide market with a lucrative growth.