Southern Medicine Economic Institute (SMEI) recently released its ranking of leading 100 Chinese pharmaceutical companies in 2007 on the basis on its own set of parameters which are not detailed in its news release.

None of the Chinese subsidiaries or joint ventures of multinational pharmaceutical companies made it to the Top 10 this year, and the top ranking MNC is XiAn Janssen Pharmaceutical Ltd. at the 11^th place. A total of 15 MNC subsidiary or JV companies are among the Top 100 as shown in the following table:

MNC Subsidiaries/JVs in the Leading 100 Chinese Pharma Cos in 2007

Source: SMEI

The leading ten Chinese pharmaceutical companies ranked by SMEI are in the table below.

Leading Ten Chinese Pharmaceutical Companies in 2007

Source: SMEI

According to SMEI, the leading 100 generated a combined total of CNY 195.4 billion ($28.03 billion) in 2007 sales, up 20.25% from the previous year. The growth rate is 10.17 percentage points higher than the 10.08% growth registered in 2006.

Figures from SMEI showed that the leading 100 pharmaceutical companies together accounted for 39.62% of the total pharmaceutical manufacturing industry's sales in 2007, 0.53 percentage point higher than the previous year. The sales of the top 10 companies alone accounted for 13.14% of the industry, a rise of 0.44 percentage point on the 2006 figure.

Among the Leading 100 Chinese pharmaceutical companies in 2007, 41 companies which were on the Leading 100 list in 2006 moved up their spaces on the 2007 list, while 12 companies on the 2007 list are new comers. 

According to SMEI, the revenues of the top ten companies account for 33.3% of the total revenues of the leading 100, up nearly 1 percentage point from the previous year. Companies from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong occupied 38 spaces out of the leading 100 in 2007, demonstrating their strong positions in the Chinese pharmaceutical industry.

SMEI also found that the profitability of the leading 100 improved in 2007 as they streamline their cost structures. However, SMEI also warned about the longer-than-average account receivable period of the leading 100.

The institute listed the five companies that showed the fastest growth in China last year. The companies are North China Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Buchang Group, Shandong Luoxin Pharmacy Stock Co. Ltd., Bayer Schering (China), and Hebei Yiling Pharmaceutical Group.

SMEI also predicted that five pharmaceutical companies will have significant potential to grow over the next few years, based on indicators such as sales growth, sales profits, balance sheet and returned assets. The five are Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group, Shandong Qilu Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Hebei Shineway Pharma, Simcere Pharmaceutical Group and Shenzhen Zhijun Pharmaceutical
Co. Ltd.

At the same time of releasing the leading 100 ranking, SMEI announced its forecasts for the output value of the Western medicine formulation sector in 2008 to be CNY 185.5 billion and CNY 205.0 billion, up by around 18%; and for that of traditional Chinese medicine formulation sector in the same year to be between CNY 146.8 billion and 177.8 billion, up by around 25%.