The bioreactor is "hot"!

Recently, the news of WuXi Biologics being included in the UVL list has aroused the industry's high attention to bioreactors, and the market's expectations for domestic substitution of pharmaceutical equipment have further increased, resulting in some bioreactor-related listed companies even bucking the trend.
situation
.
As of the close on February 10, Tofflon and Chutian Technology closed up 3.
52% and 3.
16% respectively
.
Pharmaceutical equipment (Photo source: PharmaNet) Bioreactor is one of the key equipments widely used in the production of vaccines, antibodies, recombinant proteins, and cell therapy, and plays a very important role
.
In the past, the market has not paid much attention to bioreactors, because such equipment mainly relies on imports
.
At present, the localization rate of domestic bioreactors is less than 20%
.
According to different materials, bioreactors can be divided into disposable bioreactors and stainless steel bioreactors
.
Compared with stainless steel tanks, disposable bioreactors have the advantages of less facilities, lower investment in fixed assets, high production efficiency, high flexibility, and low pollution
.
In recent years, disposable devices have been favored by more and more CDMO companies
.
According to data, the proportion of single-use bioreactors used in domestic monoclonal antibody production has exceeded 70%, which shows that its market space is huge
.
However, at present, domestic disposable biological reaction equipment and key reagent consumables mainly rely on imports, which is limited by people
.
The industry believes that with the improvement of the "heat" of bioreactors and the improvement of the technical level of domestic disposable bioreactor manufacturers, the process of domestic substitution of imports may be accelerated, and domestic pharmaceutical equipment enterprises may benefit in the future
.
Facing the tuyere of domestic substitution, many powerful pharmaceutical machine companies have already laid out in advance and gained new results
.
For example, in January 2022, Lechun Bio officially launched a biopharmaceutical process film, which is also the company's third key product released within two months
.
The company's R&D personnel said that the measured data shows that the key performance of the company's recently intensively launched related products are equal to or even slightly better than the current mainstream similar products in the international market. .
For another example, Tofflon's bioreactor products in the city cover two categories: stainless steel systems and disposable reaction systems.
Since 2020, the company has also acquired Suzhou Haiwei and Qianchun Biotechnology to strengthen the integration of consumables and fillers
.
It is reported that in the field of disposable bioreactors, Tofflon's disposable cell expansion system has approached the level of overseas equipment in some key parameters
.
In addition, Chutian Technology also plans to launch an offensive in the field of disposable bioreactors.
The company mentioned in the 2021 semi-annual report that the company is actively planning the layout and development of biological front-end disposable bioreactors and related consumables, and strives to realize related products within this year.
landing
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In the research activity report on December 16, 2021, Chutian Technology stated that the company has introduced relevant technical talents in the industry and established a holding company, Chutian Siyoute, specializing in the production and sales of bioreactor disposable bags and other biopharmaceuticals Disposable technical products
.
At the same time, Chutian Siyoute is building a factory building of about 6,000 square meters in Lingang, Shanghai.
After completion, it can achieve a production capacity of 200 million yuan for the production of disposable bioreactors, liquid dispensing bags, liquid storage bags and their membrane materials.
development and production
.
It is planned to conduct sales promotion in the market this year
.
Zheshang Securities mentioned that from the perspective of domestic companies' preparation and product competitiveness, companies such as Morison International, Tofflon, and Chutian Technology have successively entered leading pharmaceutical companies at home and abroad in the fields of upstream cell culture, downstream separation and purification, and post-packaging of biological drugs.
supply chain
.
The researcher of the institution also pointed out that since 2021, companies have made great progress in self-research of consumables and fillers, as well as mergers and acquisitions; After financing in the high-level market, it has become competitive
in new product R&D & promotion, personnel construction, etc.
It is worth mentioning that the single-use bioreactor has a high technical threshold, and the requirements for technical personnel's experience requirements, material and process requirements, and service levels are relatively high
.
At present, except for a few leading enterprises in China, there is still a large gap between the level of most domestic products and the level of foreign countries, which also means that domestic pharmaceutical equipment enterprises still have room for further improvement
.