Molly Bowman
Editorial Director, Generic and Investigational Drugs Clarivate Analytics

MANUFACTURING MARKET TRENDS

During the joint 23rd Medicines for Europe and 20th IGBA annual conference Dr Gian Mario Baccalini, President Aschimfarma and Chair, European Fine Chemical Groups, presented an overview of global API. Dr Baccalini highlighted the European API industry as a model of high tech, high quality manufacturing, with over 350 manufacturers supporting over 40,000 jobs in highly skilled roles. API production in Western Europe amounts to $13.4billion, and Italy and Spain are the most important production countries for generic APIs. The worldwide demand for active ingredients is estimated to reach $92 billion, of which $44billion is captive and $48billion merchant. The merchant market of $48 USD billion is further divided into $35billion for generics, $13 billion for custom synthesis. Growth rate for APIs in the next year is anticipated to be 4.5% in the generic sector and 4.8% in the custom sector. According to the EFCG 2016 estimates, the split of merchant output and production by geographic region shows Asia Far East at $29.0bn (60.5 %), Western Europe $13.4bn (27.9 %), North America $2.2bn (4.6 %), and Rest of the World $3.4bn (7%). ...