Cardiovascular drugs are medicines used to treat medical conditions associated with the heart or the circulatory system (blood vessels), such as arrhythmias, blood clots, coronary artery disease, high or low blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart failure, and strokes, whose therapeutic effects aim to improve cardiac functions, regulate blood flow of heart and change the circulatory system of blood distribution among other things.

There are numerous cardiovascular drugs for clinical application including anti-angina drugs, anti-arrhythmic drugs, anti-hypertensive drugs, anti-cardiac dysfunction drugs, peripheral vasodilator drugs, anti-shock vasoactive drugs etc.

 

1. Great demandscultivates a global market size of a hundred billion dollars

With the increase in cardiovascular diseases, how to reduce the incidence and mortality rate of these diseases has become a vital public health concern, especially since cardiovascular diseases have become one of the most deadly diseases in the world.

The cardiovascular drug market is still maturing with global sales close to 100 billion USD in 2015, becoming the one of the highest medicines in demand, only second to oncology drugs. Market sales of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies exceeded 50 billion USD in 2015, accounting for more than half of the total market share.

AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Merck, Pfizer and Bayer, as companies with a comparatively large scale, occupy the largest market share due to their variety of products and excellent achievements in research and development which resulted in intensifying the monopolistic competition in the cardiovascular drug market.

Cardiovascular drugs are the focus of research and development of various large pharmaceutical companies around the world, which features high speed product upgrades and a variety in products. The top 10 cardiovascular drugs in 2015 were as follows:

 

2. The domestic market is maturingwith increasing market sales year by year

According to China's cardiovascular disease report in 2015, the number of cardiovascular disease patients reached 290 million and counting. Thus, the cardiovascular market is bound to grow rapidly.

According to the PDB (Pharmaceutical Database) statistics of drug market retail prices, China's cardiovascular drug market reached 270.106 billion in 2016with an increase of 5.5% throughout2015. During 2014 the increase was 8.4% with a total of 256.201 billion RMB in 2015.

With the steady growth of cardiovascular drug sales, some stand head and shoulders above the fierce competition. In 2015, there were 15 cardiovascular drugs whose annual sales exceeded 3 billion RMB, of which the highest sales rocketed to 8 billion RMB.

 

3. Statins become China's major imports

The main imported medical product from a western country is lipid-lowering drugs, especially statins.

In addition to Xuezhikang (Lovastatin), most statin drugs which are currently being sold in the domestic Chinese market are imported. These drugs include: Pravachol (pravastatin) from Bristol Meyers Squibb, Zocor (simvastatin) from Merk, Lescol (Fluvastatin) from Novartis, Atorvastatin from Pfizer and Rosuvastatin from AstraZeneca.

P.S: Statins, also known as HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, are a class of lipid-lowering medications. Statins have been found to reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality in those who are at high risk. The evidence is strong that statins are effective for treating CVD in the early stages of the disease (secondary prevention) and in those with an elevated risk but without CVD (primary prevention).

 

4. Lipid-lowering drugs and antihypertensive drugs take the lead in the international market.

According to the China Pharmaceutical Chamber of Commerce, in 2015 China's cardiovascular drug exports totaled 18.4 billion USD with the main export destinations being Asia and Europe.

The exported products were lipid-lowering drugs and antihypertensive drugs whose representative products are Coenzyme Complex for injection, Danhong injection (DHI), Naoxintong capsule (NXT), Compound danshen dripping pills.

 

5. Well-known Chinesecardiovascular drug companies

In terms of international market exploration, Chinese companies cap an extraordinary performance.

(1) SL Pharmaceutical

Chinese leading biopharmaceutical company

Cardiovascular representative drug: simvastatin

Indication: lipid-lowering

Main exporting countries and regions: USA, Germany, UK

 

(2) Salubris Pharmaceutical

Chinese leading cardiovascular company of independent innovation and hi-tech enterprise of Country Torch Plan.

Cardiovascular representative drug: Alishatanate

Indication: hypertension

Main exporting countries and regions: EU

 

(3) Tasly Pharmaceutical

Hi-tech international holding group

Cardiovascular representative drug: Compound danshen dripping pills (one of the leading Chinese cardiovascular products)

Indication: coronary artery disease

Main exporting countries and regions: USA, EU

 

(4) Bu Chang Pharmaceutical

Cardiovascular representative drug: coronary heart Shutong capsule (China's first safe and effective Mongolian medicine for coronary heart disease angina with patent)

Indication: coronary artery disease

Main exporting countries and regions: Germany, UK

 

6. Great potential in new lipid-lowering drugs market

With the changing structures of human diseases, diseases triggered by  hyperlipidemia have become a major threat to people’s health, putting lipid-lowering drugs on the list of concerns. Driven by technological innovation, great changes are to take place in the lipid-lowering drug market: There will be a gradual decline in market shares of traditional statins year by year; the new PCSK9 inhibitors will rapidly take over market shares; uncertainty surrounds lipid-lowering drugs of fish oil whose future is currently a dark horse.

Faced with such fierce market competition, how is it possible to seek out to the most suitable international channels for market development? Maybe Ddu, the leading global pharmaceutical & medical device B2B online platform which provides one-stop solutions to cross-border medical trade problems and facilitates medical trades, may have the answer to your questions.

By Ddu