A Chinese company has got the approval from China’s State Food and Drug Administration to produce Viagra medicines in country. Viagra, a well known medicine used for erectile dysfunction, was not being produced in China in past years but now a pharmaceutical company got the green light from China’s officials.
Pfizer’s patent expired in May in China on Viagra. Since May, many pharmaceutical companies in China are trying to emerge as best producer of generic versions of Viagra pill. Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical Company emerged as best company in this duration.
After years, the company has received the license from the state production that will allow the production of Viagra. In 1990s, a subsidiary of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited started producing Viagra but they had to stop its production in 2003 when the license received by Pfizer got expired. Since most of the business was taken by Pfizer because of its quality medicine, so other Chinese companies waited for two decades to make profit in erectile dysfunction drug sector. It is a fact that the profit rate is quite high in pharmaceutical industry of China when it comes about erectile dysfunction and it is expected to grow.
An investigation carried in China to find out the market of Sildenfail (Viagra) and it was reported that more than 50 million men are victim of erectile dysfunction in China. Since the numbers of aged people are growing rapidly in China so it can be expected that there will be a rise in Viagra market in China. As per United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs projects, the numbers of people over age 60 will be about 437 million which is a huge figure.
Citigroup study in CNBC reveals that the current drug market of erectile dysfunction is worth 1.7 billion renminbi a year and this could increase up to 5 billion renminbi by 2018 which will be huge landmark for drug market. Moreover, now many Chinese pharmaceutical companies are coming into business by producing generic versions of Viagra. Since Viagra is being sold in china at more than $15, competing companies are now planning to sale their own version for half of the rate. Obviously, this will greatly impact the business of Pfizer Company which recently got the license for Viagra production.
Pfizer introduced this product in 1998, but it faced a lot of challenges in the form of patent expiration and many other litigations. The major challenge faced by Pfizer Company was its marketing to Chinese consumers. The trademark name owned by Pfizer, Wei Ge, was quite weird for Chinese which used to sound “Great Older Brother” when translated from Chinese to English. After that, it was discovered that the name used by Pfizer for marketing is already owned by a local Chinese company for its product. Later, its name was changed by Pfizer to “Wan Ai Kei” which is meaningless in Chinese. These all things discussed above played an important role in creating many challenges for Pfizer in China pharmaceutical industry.