The global scale is 38 billion US dollars, and the domestic is less than 400 million: the "missing" Chinese AIDS drug market

On August 22, Gilead announced that the AIDS treatment drug Lenacapavir was successfully approved for marketing in the European Union, which attracted market attention

AIDS is a lifelong enemy of mankind and has not been cured

However, what bothers patients is that the frequency of existing AIDS drugs is too high and the compliance is not good

Based on this background, the advent of a long-acting drug will undoubtedly be exciting, which is why Lenacapavir is attracting market attention:

Lenacapavir only needs to be injected twice

For AIDS patients, Lenacapavir is undoubtedly a new treatment option; For pharmaceutical companies, Lenacapavir has the potential to pay off handsomely

Theoretically, AIDS patients need to take drugs for life, with a long medication cycle and a low frequency, so the global AIDS treatment drug market size is considerable, reaching 38 billion US dollars

Domestically, however, the opposite is true

Why?

/ 01 /

The global market size is 38 billion US dollars, and the domestic market is less than 400 million US dollars

Globally, AIDS is a type of disease

Because HIV is a virus that destroys the immune system, it can easily lead to patients contracting other diseases with serious consequences

We can only block HIV replication through antiretroviral therapy, thereby controlling the viral load of patients and reducing the risk

Before the advent of curable drugs, it was inevitable

For many patients, it is extremely difficult

But even so, the market size of anti-AIDS drugs is still not small

The core reason lies in two aspects: First, the patient population is large

Back home

However, in 2021, the domestic AIDS treatment drug market size is only 393 million US dollars, accounting for 1% of the global market size, which is much smaller than the proportion of

Obviously, the size of the domestic AIDS treatment drug market has not kept up with the "rhythm"
.

/ 02 /

Free supply of drugs + generic drugs, the market "missing" the truth

The small size of the domestic AIDS treatment drug market is determined by national conditions
.
Overall, there are two reasons:

First, most of the domestic AIDS treatment drugs have passed the patent period, facing fierce pressure from generic drug competition, and the price is limited
.

As shown in the figure below, most of the AIDS treatment drugs in China are ancient varieties
that were listed 20 years ago.

Second, the domestic use of free drug donation, "collection" and medical insurance negotiations dominate any AIDS drug research and development enterprises, further resulting in AIDS treatment drugs do not have too much bargaining space
.

For example, after Chengdu Beta Pharmaceutical's innovative drug tenofovir disoproxil fumarate tablets were approved for marketing in 2016, the monthly treatment cost pricing standard was only 40 yuan
.

Overseas AIDS innovative drugs have abundant independent pricing power, which is completely different from
the situation faced by domestic AIDS drugs.

Although, the variety of free drugs is older, and domestic patients can also choose to use better drugs
at their own expense.
However, a practical problem is that the provinces with the largest number of HIV infections in China are mainly areas with relatively backward economic development, and patients have limited
ability to pay.

Therefore, even if innovative AIDS drugs are available, patients' ability to pay will not be enough to cope
.
According to the CCI Consulting Report, the market size of national free drugs accounts for about
74% of the overall anti-HIV drug market size in China.

This has further led to a limited
size of the domestic AIDS treatment drug market.

/ 03 /

The enthusiasm of pharmaceutical companies is starting to increase, who can bring better treatment options?

Old drugs don't make money, and new drugs are not bought
.
In this case, the imagination space of AIDS drugs is naturally limited, and it is difficult to attract more players to layout
.

Unlike the scene of overseas AIDS drug research and development in full swing, domestic AIDS drug research and development is somewhat deserted
.

So far, there are only three innovative AIDS drugs developed by China, namely Ebbervetai of Frontier Biology, Eddy Pharmaceuticals, and Azvedine
of Real Life.

If compared with overseas drugs, the three products are also difficult to say that they have a competitive advantage
.
However, in terms of drug intervals, the three domestic drugs with the longest frequency of medication also need to be used once a week, which is far from
overseas long-acting therapies.

Obviously, domestic patients are also in urgent need of more effective therapies
.
One thing to look forward to is that the future may usher in a turnaround
.

At present, the purchase of AIDS drugs is shifting from a simple centralized procurement of the state to the trend of
combining free treatment + medical insurance payment + self-payment market.

For example, in 2021, the innovative drugs in the field of AIDS, enovirine tablets, bikleinol tablets, and granramivudine dotiravir tablets were included in medical insurance
.
In addition, with the improvement of the economic level, the ability of domestic patients to pay will also increase
accordingly.

For pharmaceutical companies, instead of getting together on tumors, they will try more in the field of AIDS, bringing better treatment options to patients, and may also bring unexpected gains to themselves
.
Looking forward to more domestic innovative pharmaceutical companies entering the market
.