China has around 40 million asthma patients with 4% annual morbidity growth, according to local experts.

Healthoo, a local pharmaceutical industry research company, estimated on the basis of recent survey that the current size of the Chinese market for asthma drugs is between CNY 2.5 to 3.0 billion (US$329 to US$395 million). Other estimates by local experts suggest the market size can be as large as CNY 4.0 billion (US$526 million).

Information from the Southern Medicine Economic Institute (SMEI) shows that the average annual growth rate of the Chinese asthma market between 2004 and 2006 was 22.4% (or 12.1%, 33.9% and 22.2% year on year).

The total purchase of asthma drugs by over 400 representative hospitals monitored by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association (CPA) was over CNY 200 million (US$26 million) in 2006, up by 21.6%.

23 asthma drugs are included in the reimbursement bulletin of the urban employee basic medical insurance program, among which 50% are inhaler or aerosol products.

Judging by the large and rising number of the asthma patient population, the Chinese asthma drug market has huge growth potential.

By sales value, aerosols and inhalers account for 61.5% of the Chinese asthma drug sales in 2006 while oral and injectable dosage forms account for 30.5 and 8.0% respectively, according to Healthoo. However, by volume, oral products are the dominant dosage form in the Chinese asthma drug market, largely due to the high consumption of theophylline drug products in China.

SMEI suggests that hospital sales of asthma drugs accounts for about 70% of the Chinese asthma drug market, while retail pharmacy sales accounts for the rest 30%. Western medicines dominate the retail asthma drug market, while traditional Chinese medicines compete more forcefully on the hospital asthma drug market.  There are about 90 Western drugs and 80 traditional Chinese medicines approved in China.

Hospital market - CPA’s hospital drug purchase audit reveals that the hospital purchase of Western drugs for asthma grew 18.7% while that of TCMs for asthma rose 14.6% in 2006. In addition, the share of asthma drugs in aerosols and inhaler dosage forms was as high as 68.0% on the hospital market in 2006, according to CPA’s hospital drug purchase audit.

Retail market – SMEI’s data shows that the retail market share distribution between aerosols, aerosolized solution, inhalers, tablets, capsules, granules and was 44%, 1%, 20%, 26%, 8%, and 1%.

According to SMEI, GlaxoSmithKline is the dominant player on the Chinese retail pharmacy market with 33.59% share, followed by AstraZeneca which has a 16.47% market share.

Source: SMEI

Multinational pharmaceutical companies also dominate the top ten asthma drug products on the retail pharmacy market with local companies accounting for only 7.93%.

Source: SMEI

Healthoo’s recent survey finds multinational companies dominating the urban Chinese market for ethical asthma drugs in aerosol and powder inhaler forms. In this market segment, the local companies together account for only 1.2%, while the rest 98.8% is divided by GSK (43.4%), AstraZeneca (41.3%) and Boehringer Ingelheim (14.1%).

The leading brands in the same market segment in 2006 are shown in the following table:

Source: Healthoo

The SFDA announced in 2006 that all production of CFC-based aerosol drug products in China will be terminated from January 1, 2010.  Currently China has over 60 pharmaceutical companies with CFC-based drug product approvals. 

There has been limited research on alternative propellants of aerosol drug products such as HFA in China, but foreign companies have registered many HFA related patents in the country. There are so far no approvals in China for import of HFA as pharmaceutical propellants.

Very few Chinese companies have started research on alternative propellants but some have began to look into powder inhaler as an alternative. More local companies will face CFC product termination by the deadline, thus leaving more market opportunities for foreign companies in this market segment.