Drug output by 30 largest pharmaceutical companies accounted for 54 percent of the total production in the past three years, government data showed.
According to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the nation produced 21.1 trillion won ($17.82 billion) worth drugs in 2018, up 3.7 percent from 20.35 trillion won in 2017. The drug output took up 1.18 percent of the gross domestic product in 2018.
Pharmaceutical products accounted for 4.35 percent of manufacturing goods in 2018, recording the largest share in the past five years. The annual growth of drug products stood at 6.5 percent, 2.1 percentage points higher than 4.4 percent of the manufacturing total.
The top 30 pharmaceutical firms produced 11.48 trillion won worth drugs, which accounted for 54 percent of the total output in the pharmaceutical sector. The proportion has remained the same since 2016.
By company, Hanmi Pharmaceutical ranked No. 1, manufacturing 907.5 billion won worth products in 2018, up 19.5 percent from a year earlier.
Chong Kun Dang, which was at the third place in 2017, came up to the second in 2018 by producing 817.2 billion won goods. Celltrion, which topped the output in 2017, went down to third with 725.9 billion won production in 2018. The fourth, fifth, and sixth went to Daewoong Pharmaceutical with 692.6 billion won, CJ Healthcare with 547.7 billion won, and Yuhan Corp. with 534.8 billion won, respectively.
Pharmaceuticals manufactured 18.54 trillion won worth of finished drugs in 2018. By company, GC Pharma produced 100.2 billion won worth IV-Globulin SN Inj. 5 percent, which topped the output in 2018. The production of the immunoglobulin preparation was at the seventh place in the previous year. Medytox’ botulinum toxin Meditoxin came next with 95 billion won and Handok’s Plavix Tab. 75mg, 81.1 billion won.
The total output of raw materials for drugs stood at 2.56 trillion won in 2018, and Celltrion’s raw materials for biosimilar drugs ranked high. Celltrion’s production of raw materials for Herzuma recorded 290.4 billion won, followed by those for Truxima with 211.2 billion, and those for Remsima, 145.2 billion won.