China’s pharmaceutical equipment industry has gone through for more than half a century from zero to small and then become bigger and bigger.
Since the founding of PRC to the year of 1978, there were only 27 small pharmaceutical equipment manufacturers all over China, who could only produce about 39 varieties and 98 types of machineries and the level was just close to the world level in 1940s to 1950s. The establishment of State Pharmaceutical Administration of China in 1978 regulated and unified the management of pharmaceutical equipment industry. At that time the pharmaceutical machineries were distributed by plan and the machineries manufactured could not meet medicine producing requirements. Pharmaceutical machineries were seriously in short supply, for example, the ratio of supply and demand of Tablet Press Machine, Liquid and Powder Filling-sealing Machines was less than 1:2 before 1985, Blister Packaging Machines were dependent on import before 1990. With the progress of Reform & Opening Up, the development of pharmaceutical equipment industry was accelerated. During the last half period of “The Seventh Five-Year-Plan”, the number of pharmaceutical equipment manufacturers increased to 180 who were able to manufacture 8 categories and 635 varieties of machineries and equipment, such as machinery and equipment for API manufacturing, preparation machinery and equipment, pharmaceutical milling machinery, machinery for making herbal medicine, water treatment equipment, packaging machinery, medicine inspection instrument as well as other pharmaceutical machinery and equipment.
In 1985, with the Reform & Opening Up Policy going deeper, some military undertakings, scientific research institutions and other organizations joined in pharmaceutical equipment industry to start the manufacturing of machineries and this brought vitality to this industry. In a short time, enterprises gained obvious progress in attracting talents, quality management as well as R&D of new products.
In the middle of the 1990s, there were already over 400 pharmaceutical equipment manufacturers who could produce 8 categories and about 1,100 varieties of machineries. The machineries they produced could not only meet the demands from medicine producers, health care producers as well as food industry in China, but also exported to more than 20 countries and areas outside of China, such as USA, India, Pakistan and Hong Kong.
GMP implementation in medicine production and the modernization of Chinese traditional medicine provided opportunities for developing pharmaceutical equipment industry, so new equipment manufacturers emerged, new types of machineries were developed and production technology and product quality were improved to a higher level. These machineries helped medicine producing factories in their GMP implementation.
Currently, there are about 800 pharmaceutical equipment manufacturers in China, they are now producing over 3,000 varieties and types of machineries. The level of most machineries remain at the world level of 1990s. However, a part of them like high speed Tablet Press, Dish Type Centrifuge, Blister Packaging Machine, Cartoning Machine has reached the current world level, The annual output of pharmaceutical machineries is already above 15 billions of RMB. Based on this fact, we can say that China has really become a big pharmaceutical equipment manufacturing country.
With the implementation of Reform & Opening Up going on deeper and deeper. The government administration departments changed their functions from time to time, By 1998, all government administration departments had been cancelled, and even the newly established State Food and Drug Administration Bureau was released from ist function of managing of pharmaceutical equipment industry. In this case, China Association for Pharmaceutical Equipment (hereinafter referred to as CAPE) was set up based on the regulations and rules stipulated for Social Organizations. From then, CAPE started to act as the bridge between the government and pharmaceutical equipment manufacturers, to carry out the government guiding lines and policies, to reflect the desires and requirements from manufacturers to the government. In addition, CAPE also works on publications, net work, organizing various technical exchanges, seminars and training courses, opening up more foreign markets, to organize the establishment work of product standards as well as other works authorized by the government. CAPE has been doing a great deal for the development of pharmaceutical equipment industry, for modernization of China pharmaceutical industry and also has been contributing a great deal to the health of Chinese people.
The China National Pharmaceutical Machinery Exposition sponsored by CAPE has been held for 37 rounds, which provides a platform for international market. Usually, this exposition takes up around 70,000 square meters space, exhibited machines are up to 8,000 sets of different types, professional visitors are about 60,000 man-time. Up to the 37th exposition, 120 turns of technical exchange have been held and participated personnel are around 70,000. International Pharmaceutical Machinery Seminar (IPMS) was started from 2007, ambassadors, counselors from embassies of about 35 countries, Such as India, Russia, Pakistan, USA as well as Germany and some representatives from chambers of commerce, associations and famous enterprises have been present.
Since 1992, pharmaceutical equipment made in China have been exhibited in 15 countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, India and Germany. The actual strength and the notable cost-effectiveness of the products have attracted the attention of medicine companies, pharmaceutical machinery manufacturers as well as the relative trading companies and personnel in many countries and areas from recent years.
The remarkable achievements gained in the past 30 years certainly would add a brilliant page to the development history of china pharmaceutical equipment, but what has been achieved is only the first step in a long march. We still have a long way to go and the tasks must be even more arduous in the future, which require dozens of thousands of personnel engaged in pharmaceutical equipment industry to continuously strive for making China a powerful pharmaceutical equipment country in the world and also to write a more brilliant chapter in the way of marching to a socialist economy market!
Shi Qin
06/01/ 2009
*The above information is abstracted from the Album of China Pharmaceutical Equipment Industry in the 30 Years of Reform & Opening Up*The fellowing information is abstracted from this Album’s Part II — Pharmaceutical Equipment Enterpries:
Shanghai Jornen Pharmaceutical Machinery Co., Ltd was established in 1989 and its former name was Zhejiang Ruian Pharmaceutioal Machinery Co., Ltd. The new company invested over 60 million yuan of RBM in 2000 for construction of new company office and factory and total area is about 4 Hectares .Its floor space is 23000 square meters, among which 16,000 square meters are production area mainly used for manufacture of flat-plate Blister Packaging Machine. This company passed ISO9001 in 1999 and its box packaging machine passed CE in 2000. In addition, this company has obtained 12 pieces of different patents. In 1989, the sales of the company was only 26 thousand yuan of RMB, whereas after 20 years of development, the sales value was up to 70 million yuan of RMB by 2008 and once even reached 120 million yuan of RMB. The products of the company have sold all over China and exported to 70 foreign countries and areas as well, such as USA, Russia, South-East Asia, Middle-East Asia, Australia, etc.. As the result, the company is rated as the biggest Blister Packaging Machine manufacturer in China.