Worries about pharma’s reliance on China for its supply of key drug
ingredients have popped up in the U.S. from time to time before. Now,
the rising coronavirus has sparked the fear again.
As of Sunday, China had reported more than 17,205 confirmed cases
of 2019-nCoV in humans. The death toll has reached 361. The mushrooming
case count and various measures aimed at thwarting the disease are
straining medical supplies in China, though it’s mostly protection
products, such as masks, running short so far.
But as the virus continues to spread across China and beyond, one
question emerges: If China prioritizes drugs for its own use amid
surging domestic demand—or if the outbreak spurs further bans on
international travel and trade, such as the restrictions now imposed by
the U.S.—can other parts of the world sustain an adequate drug supply?
There’s no question that China is a major supplier of drug
ingredients to the U.S., especially for widely used generics. For
example, according to U.S. International Trade Commission data cited in a
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
report
(PDF), China accounted for a 70.4% share of U.S. antibiotic imports in
2013. Today, that number may be even higher at a dominant 97%, according
to Gary Cohn, previously chief economic adviser to President Donald
Trump, as quoted by Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at
nonprofit think tank
the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
And questions about that dependence on Chinese sources for essential
medicines have repeatedly surfaced in the U.S.—once as tainted
valsartan was first traced to an API from China’s Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical, once amid U.S.-China trade tension and once as an
African swine fever threatened heparin supply. And that’s just in the last few years.
For instance, in the heat of the now partly resolved U.S.-China trade
war, Li Daokui, an economist at Tsinghua University and an adviser to
Beijing, raised the possibility of China curbing exports of antibiotics
as a countermeasure.
“Just as some international analysts have pointed out, we are indeed
at the mercy of others when it comes to computer chips, but we are the
world’s largest exporter of vitamin and antibiotic ingredients,” Li said
last March during a speech at a national advisory conference, as quoted
by state-run
Xinhua (Chinese). “If we cut back exports, some western countries’ medical system won’t operate well.”
China at least isn’t likely to throw the first punch. As CFR’s Huang
noted in his blog post, China needs innovative finished drugs made in
western countries for diseases such as cancer. However, the coronavirus
epidemic adds a different fold of uncertainty: domestic demand.
Supplies of a traditional Chinese herbal concoction called
shunaghuanglian immediately ran out both online and in pharmacies after
state media reported Friday that the drug could “inhibit” the new deadly
coronavirus.
The report cited research at the Chinese Academy of Science’s
Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica and the Wuhan Institute of
Virology. Even though the idea was quickly rejected by the wider science
community, it does show China—with a population of 1.4 billion—can
deplete drug supplies amid an epidemic. By that time, it simply might
not have enough left for the rest of the world.
“I would be asking my supply chain folks, what do we have coming from
China, what’s our inventory, and if we don’t have enough, can we get as
much as fast possible?” Steven Lynn, an FDA official turned consultant,
said
in a Stat report. “And remember, this isn’t just a U.S. problem. It’s a
global problem if China starts shutting down its borders.”
Multinational pharma companies say they are well prepared, though.
“Pfizer consistently and diligently monitors the supply of our
medicines,” a Pfizer spokesman told FiercePharma in a statement Friday.
He pointed to the company’s 40 self-owned sites and more than 200
suppliers globally, “which provide capacity and redundancy as needed.”
Most of its finished products and APIs come from countries other than
China, he said.
Johnson & Johnson is also on the lookout for the coronavirus
situation. “We have robust business continuity plans in place to prepare
for unforeseen events and to meet the needs of the patients, customers
and consumers who depend on our products,” a J&J spokesperson said.
That includes “critical inventory” at major distribution centers
outside high-risk areas, the spokesperson said, as well as working with
external suppliers.
A Roche representative told FiercePharma the Swiss drugmaker has one
API for global demand coming from China “with existing stock reserves
and the opportunity to source from another location,” adding that the
company has “robust plans for dealing with the impact of potential
health crises.”
https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma-asia/as-china-battles-coronavirus-should-other-countries-worry-about-their-drug-supply
