The new crown epidemic has swept the world. Although the Chinese medicine and medical industry faces many challenges during the epidemic, the domestic epidemic has been flattened, and the foreign epidemic is still spreading today.
The new crown epidemic has swept the world. Although the Chinese medicine and medical industry faces many challenges during the epidemic, the domestic epidemic has been flattened, and the foreign epidemic is still spreading today. More views regard this epidemic as a long-term opportunity for the industry in the future. However, the related industries that have seen market changes at present are mainly concentrated in the short-term incremental fields after the outbreak, such as testing kits and protective products.
At present, the positive progress of domestic new crown vaccine research and development is coming, but there is no latest news about the research and development of new crown pneumonia specific drugs. After the epidemic has "activated" the pharmaceutical industry to a certain extent on a global scale, can biomedical innovation see a new development trend in the future? In this track with the participation of global companies, can domestic pharmaceutical companies overtake in corners to achieve "leading"?
Dr. Tang Jian, a returned pharmaceutical entrepreneur and biomedical research and development expert, told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that the current impact of the epidemic on the pharmaceutical industry is mainly reflected in the two short-term incremental opportunities for nucleic acid, antibody and other testing reagents and protective equipment. In the long run, the impact of the new crown epidemic on the overall environment will be reflected in the increased attention paid to the medical and pharmaceutical industries by the whole society, the further expansion and enrichment of public medical resources, the expansion and improvement of the medical system, and the attraction of social resources into the medical field. , and may form a certain concentration of Internet medical treatment such as telemedicine.
"Due to the great importance attached by governments around the world, the research and development of the new crown vaccine is currently making good progress. The epidemic of infectious diseases is time-sensitive, so pharmaceutical companies are cautious in developing drugs for the epidemic. The SARS virus that suddenly appeared in 2003 has not yet There is no specific drug because there are almost no pharmaceutical companies to develop targeted drugs. The same is true for this new coronary pneumonia. Pharmaceutical companies will observe and evaluate the possible duration of the epidemic, the intensity of demand for specific drugs, and the possibility of developing specific drugs. The time required, financial costs, etc. It is not excluded that those pharmaceutical companies that have been engaged in antiviral research and development may immediately arrange drug research for the new coronavirus, or conduct improved research on the drugs already on the market. However, starting the research and development of new novel coronavirus specific drugs should be It's difficult." Tang Jian said.
In the early stage of the epidemic, due to the impact of production capacity, there was a large gap in protective equipment such as medical masks and medical protective clothing, and there were also large gaps in protective masks and testing reagents for daily use. However, with the continuous increase in subsequent production capacity and the layout of protective equipment production lines by many non-medical device manufacturers such as Foxconn and BYD, the above situation has been effectively alleviated. The supply capacity of nucleic acid testing companies is also constantly improving.
Tang Jian said that the current epidemic has brought short-term incremental opportunities for nucleic acid detection kits, antibody detection kits and protective equipment. At present, the domestic epidemic situation has gradually stabilized, and many manufacturers of test kits and protective equipment have begun to turn their attention to overseas markets. He believes that companies in the future industry that have obtained domestic and foreign registration certificates, have a high degree of automation, and deploy a variety of protective product pipelines will have better development prospects.
The report of Ernst & Young (China) corporate consulting firm pointed out that in the medium and long term, the epidemic is having a subtle impact on the pharmaceutical and medical industry, which may bring about changes in the focus of industry development and reshaping of business models.
Ernst & Young believes that from the perspective of the government, due to the significant impact of the epidemic, the pain points of traditional medical care have been fully exposed, such as scarcity and imbalance of medical resources, and medical services may be limited. It is expected that the government will pay more attention to the development of the medical and health industry after the epidemic. ; Judging from the current policy trend, the grassroots-oriented innovative medical systems and innovative insurance payment models, such as hierarchical diagnosis and treatment, medical alliances, family doctor systems, and community first consultation, will gain rare development opportunities.
At the same time, on the hospital side, the informatization reform is expected to develop rapidly. Ernst & Young said that since the construction of Internet hospitals in the past is still in the initial stage of development, Internet hospitals have played a very important role in this epidemic. It may be included in the Internet hospital system. These will become an important force to promote the realization of the ecological closed loop of Internet hospitals. We believe that in the future, the Internet will be deeply integrated into the hospital process, and the hospital and medical alliance will be built into a real Internet hospital, which can not only do simple consultations, but also In addition, there will be functional services such as joint consultation, report interpretation, and online medical insurance settlement."
Regarding the development opportunities brought by Internet medical care in the post-epidemic period, Soochow Securities Research Report pointed out that Internet medical care will accelerate the outflow of prescriptions and promote the accelerated integration of the pharmacy industry. According to the research report, my country's drug retail market currently accounts for about 23.5% of the total drug terminal market size, and there is still a big gap with developed countries. Due to policy-oriented hospitals to reduce the proportion of drugs, the outflow of prescriptions remains stable every year. The data shows that from 2010 to 2018, the proportion of public hospitals' drugs decreased from 41.8% to 28.7%, and the growth rate of drug revenue decreased from 16.3% to 1.4%. "We believe that the trend of prescription outflow has been determined. In the post-epidemic period, the Internet + medical insurance policy will further accelerate the process of prescription outflow, and chain pharmacies are expected to benefit."
On the other hand, the "AI + drug research and development" track has gained more and more attention during the epidemic. In January this year, Alibaba Cloud announced that all AI computing power would be freely available to public scientific research institutions around the world to accelerate the research and development of new drugs and vaccines for COVID-19; Helping viral gene sequencing, vaccine and drug research and development, protein screening and other drug research and development research.
Regarding the use of AI in the field of drug research and development, Tang Jian pointed out that the current relevant trends mostly stay at the level of news reports, and have not yet seen the manifestation of specific results. AI companies themselves are not drug development companies, but they can cooperate with pharmaceutical companies to help pharmaceutical companies. companies to improve the efficiency of drug development.
In addition to its possible role in new drug and vaccine research and development centers, the Ernst & Young report pointed out that AI can also be used in auxiliary diagnosis systems to effectively shorten the time for issuing diagnosis reports, assist in diagnosis and treatment, and literature search, and also play a role in reducing cross-infection and event warning. important role. However, Ernst & Young also mentioned that the current impact of AI in the epidemic is still limited, and the impact of the epidemic on hospital operations and patient visits has not been completely eliminated.
Although the spread of the new crown epidemic around the world has broken the life and economic order of people in various countries, the field of new drug research and development, which has high expectations, seems to be in a state of being unable to turn things around. A statistic conducted by Sina Pharmaceuticals in May this year showed that in the first four months of 2020, a total of 139 transactions in research and development cooperation on new crown drugs occurred. 55%.
Among these 139 cooperations, about 56% of them are in the early R&D stage, about 9.3% are in the clinical trial stage, and the rest are "production supply", "service", "sponsorship", etc. Up to now, apart from the occasional good news of the new crown vaccine, the research and development of special drugs can be described as "a long way to go".
Tang Jian told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that due to reasons such as the timeliness of the epidemic and the long process of new drug research and development, it can be seen that there is no SARS specific drug available until now, and domestic investment institutions are better at investing in "model" projects. Investment in industries, including drug R&D, also slowed from 2018.
Tang Jian believes that the possible direction for the development of new drugs related to the new crown is to have done coronavirus research before, and the team with R&D background will conduct re-study; or conduct research on the indications of some old drugs and new use, and start new special drugs R&D Probably "probability of success is low".
"Although everyone pays special attention to the epidemic, what has not changed is that my country's cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes, and tumors are still in the top ranks. The number of patients is large, and the demand for drugs is also large. During the epidemic In the past, most companies developed drugs around these indications. How they did it in the past will continue to do so after the epidemic. For example, there are 200 to 300 million patients with hypertension in the country, and more than 100 million patients with diabetes. Discolored tumors, these disease areas are full of expectations for new drugs, and companies will still focus on these.”
He said, "The pharmaceutical industry has not been able to meet the people's demand for good and high-quality medicine. This contradiction has always existed. But we are not just watching and thinking of ways to solve it. Each pharmaceutical company will adapt based on its own situation. Changes in the market and the general environment. Enterprises must have strong adaptability, adapt to the general environment, and focus on their own advantages and expertise. You must have a clear understanding of what you can and cannot do, and you can't just chase after your head. Hotspots, lose their original things. Enterprises still have their own expertise and patience. The pharmaceutical industry is a high-investment and long-term industry, and enterprises must adapt to this law.”
"Pharmaceutical development will maintain the original rhythm. Capable companies, companies that have done antibiotics or R&D before and have particularly strong financial strength, may try to make new crown drugs. But for more small and medium-sized enterprises, what they do is still What to do, because the epidemic will eventually pass, for example, our company continues to pay attention to diabetes and tumors, and more patients at home and abroad in these fields are still looking forward to the emergence of new drugs." Tang Jian said.
Talking about whether the traditional Chinese medicine industry, which has performed well in the epidemic, can take this opportunity to go abroad and enter the high-end market in Europe and the United States, Tang Jian believes that due to the incompatibility between the evaluation system of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, it is difficult to see that traditional Chinese medicine can truly go to Europe and the United States in the short and medium term. market.
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