China has always been a major exporter of raw pharmaceutical materials, and how to develop the export of Western medicine products towards higher added value has attracted much attention.

　　Chinese medicineData released on January 29 by the China Chamber of Commerce for Health Products Import and Export shows that in 2025, China's exports of Western medicine preparations amounted to US$8.841 billion, a year-on-year increase of 27.29%. Among them, the export value of preparations accounted for a record high of 15.85% of the total exports of Western medicine products.

　　Furthermore, in 2025, the export value of pharmaceutical preparations accounted for 7.94% of the total export value of pharmaceutical products, showing a significant upward trend. This reflects the continuous upgrading of China's pharmaceutical industry from upstream intermediates and raw materials to downstream high-value-added fields such as pharmaceutical preparations.

　　In 2025, China's exports of Western medicine preparations showed a trend of "both volume and price increase", with the export volume increasing by 17.71% year-on-year and the export unit price increasing by 8.01% year-on-year.

　　In terms of regional markets, exports to the EU (excluding the UK) still accounted for the largest share, with a year-on-year growth of 70.4%, up about 10 percentage points from 2024. Among them, exports to France increased by 281.82%, exports to Denmark increased by 19.39%, and exports to Italy increased by 488.89%.

　　Due to the impact of the additional tariffs, the proportion of pharmaceutical exports to the United States in total pharmaceutical exports fell to 13.14%, a decrease of about 3.4 percentage points compared to 2024.

　　Overall, the category driving the significant growth in China's pharmaceutical preparation exports in 2025 is hormone-based drugs, with an export value of US$3.153 billion, a year-on-year increase of 106.00%. Among these, preparations including various insulin analogs and GLP-1 peptide drugs accounted for US$2.977 billion in exports, a year-on-year increase of 110.90%, representing the main increase in hormone-based drug exports. Within this category, exports to France increased by 468.88% year-on-year, and exports to Denmark increased by 19.40%, also constituting the main contribution to the growth of pharmaceutical preparation exports to the EU. In addition, recombinant human insulin preparations exports reached US$82.37 million, a year-on-year increase of 87.66%.

　　The China Chamber of Commerce for Medicines & Health Products Import & Export stated that the main reason for this surge is the rising global demand for insulin analogs and GLP-1 drugs due to the increasing incidence of metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity. This is partly due to multinational corporations deepening their development strategies in China, shifting from an early focus on importing finished formulations to share in the Chinese market's benefits ("in China for China") to a strategy of continuously increasing investment in formulation production in China ("in China for global"). Multinational pharmaceutical companies are using China as a crucial base for their global supply chain. On the other hand, domestic companies have achieved technological breakthroughs and increased production capacity in areas such as insulin analogs and GLP-1 peptide drugs. Many companies are exporting their products to emerging markets in various forms and achieving commercialization, and are also beginning to apply for registration with the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) and EMA (European Medicines Agency), participating in international competition from multiple dimensions.