China to Play Starring Role in AstraZeneca API Outsourcing (China)
This article was originally published in PharmAsia News
Executive Summary
AstraZeneca plans to phase out making its own active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) during the next five to 10 years in order to outsource or source the production in China. Already the company is creating a dedicated sourcing center in Shanghai for their own API and chemical products. They say the move will align with the general trend in the pharmaceutical sector, as well as make AstraZeneca more cost-efficient and competitive in emerging markets. AstraZeneca spends about $9 billion per year in pharmaceutical product purchases, and it believes using a China sourcing center will save it 10 percent between now and 2010. AstraZeneca sees China as a production base for global sales, and intends to have 90 percent of its global products eventually made in China. Today production in China and India comprise about 10 percent of its drug products. A company official says that in terms of shutting down its own production of APIs, "the first step will be to exit API production in the U.K. at Macclesfield and in Plankstadt in Germany, although we would still have manufacturing capabilities in the medium term in Sweden, which is being downsized, and Avlon, near Bristol, and Dunkirk." (Click here for more