Korea marked the first trade surplus in pharmaceutical products last year since the nation began compiling related data in 1998, the government said.
On Sunday, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety released the data of Korea’s output, export, and import of medicines in 2020.
The data showed that the nation posted a trade surplus of 1.39 trillion won ($1.2 billion) in pharmaceutical goods in 2020. Although the size of the local pharmaceutical market decreased 4.7 percent on-year to 23.17 trillion won last year, the market size has been steadily growing 1.6 percent annually on average for the past five years.
The market growth is attributed to a significant expansion of the export of drugs compared to that of production and imports. Export of medicines surged 62.5 percent on-year to 9.96 trillion won last year. Pharmaceutical output grew 10.1 percent to 24.5 trillion won, and imports, 5.2 percent to 8.57 trillion won.
Out of the total drug export of 9.96 trillion won, finished drugs accounted for 79.6 percent, significantly contributing to the trade surplus.
Export of finished drugs spiked 92.3 percent last year from 7.93 trillion won in 2019. The growth was much faster than that of the total drug export at 62.5 percent.
Germany was the largest importer of Korean finished medicines, purchasing $1.85 billion, followed by the U.S. with $780 million and Turkey with $589 million.
Korea imported drugs from the U.S. the most ($977 billion), then from Germany ($896 million) and China ($887 million).
The top three products among most exported Korean drugs were biopharmaceuticals.
The three were all biosimilars of Celltrion. The company’s rheumatoid arthritis treatment Remsima Inj. 100mg was the No. 1 exporting drug with 543.5 billion won shipments, followed by breast/gastric cancer drug Herzuma Inj. 150mg with 98.6 billion won and arthritis/lymphoma drug Truxima Inj. with 75.3 billion won.
The output and export of biopharmaceutical medicines also grew rapidly in 2020. The production of pharmaceuticals increased 54.9 percent to 3.9 trillion won. The pace of the growth of biopharmaceuticals was particularly pronounced, compared to the increase of the total drug output at 10.1 percent.
Export of biopharmaceutical products increased 57.3 percent to 2.38 trillion won in 2020. Imports grew 11.3 percent to $1.48 billion.
Among the top 20 exporting drugs, 12 were biopharmaceuticals, and of them, eight were biosimilars. Among the biopharmaceuticals, the eight biosimilar products accounted for 79.7 percent, leading the export growth.
The nation’s output of local drugs accounted only for 1.2 percent of the GDP and 5.1 percent of the manufacturing industry. However, the local drug production grew at an annual rate of 6.9 percent on average for the past five years, showing the possibility that the drug industry could help the economic growth in the future.
The top 10 companies in drug production were Celltrion, Hanmi Pharmaceutical, Chong Kun Dang, GC Pharma, inno.N, Daewoong Pharmaceutical, Yuhan Corp., LG Chem, Dong-A ST, and JW Pharmaceutical.
Among them, Celltrion and Hanmi Pharm recorded over 1 trillion won output. Celltrion produced 1.47 trillion won worth of medicines, and Hanmi, 1.14 trillion won.
Celltrion’s output surged 149.2 percent year-on-year, and that of inno.N and Yuhan, 11 percent and 18.2 percent, respectively.
In contrast, Daewoong’s production decreased 14.9 percent.
Last year, it was notable that the production of domestic new drugs continued to increase while the proportion of prescription drug production was still high.
Prescription drugs accounted for 84.9 percent (17.8 trillion won) of finished drug output last year.
The output of quasi-drugs also jumped 124 percent on-year to 3.71 trillion won in 2020. It resulted from an 818 percent and 926 percent increase in masks and sanitizers, respectively, amid the high demand for products to prevent infectious diseases.