China's Pharmaceutical Industry Develops Rapidly      

The State Council has recently published the white paper "Safety Supervision of Medicines in China". The total production of the pharmaceutical industry increased to RMB667.9 billion in 2007 from RMB137.1 billion in 1998.
    China produces 1 500 varieties active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) today. A group of plant medicines and natural medicines have been manufactured and used in China. Arteannuin produced in China has widely applied in the world and made great contributions to the prevention and treatment of malaria.
   China produces 41 bacteria that can prevent and treat 26 viruses and bacterial infections, with the output of more than 1.0 billion BOU a year. Of the total the output of vaccines preventing infectious diseases such as hepatitis B, poliomyelitis and measles has reached 500 million pieces person. At the time of satisfying the needs in domestic market, domestic vaccines have supplied to the World Health Organization for the disease prevention and treatment in other countries. China also produces more than 3 000 varieties of medical apparatuses. As of the end of 2007 there was a total of 6 913 pharmaceutical producers in China (including producers of traditional Chinese medicines and medical oxygen), in which 4 682 of the total are APIs and formulation producers, and 12 591 manufacturers are from medical apparatuses.
   The export value and import value of the pharmaceutical industry in China was US$24.6 billion and US$14.0 billion respectively in 2007.
   China has also accelerated construction of modern pharmaceutical logistics and chain shops.