Small medicine bottle, big market. The situation of insufficient supply of neutral borosilicate glass tubes in China, which was exposed by the substandard quality of vaccine bottles, is changing. In the past two years, under the domestic enterprises'hard work and investment layout, the output has climbed, which has promoted the transformation and upgrading of the pharmaceutical glass industry and guaranteed the national drug safety.
Medicinal glass refers to the glass specially used for drug packaging, generally referring to glass bottles and utensils. Under the influence of temperature, humidity, air, light, microorganisms and so on, the stability of drugs will change, so special pharmaceutical glass is needed as packaging materials.
Medicinal glass can be divided into soda-lime glass and borosilicate glass according to the glass material. According to the manufacturing process, it can be divided into molded bottles, tube bottles and ampoules. Chemical property is one of the important standards to measure the quality of pharmaceutical glass. For example, the better the water resistance of glass, the more stable the material properties, the less chemical reaction with the solvent in the bottle, and the safer and more reliable the vaccine liquid in the bottle.
In addition, there are two main production processes of medical glass bottles, one is molding, the other is control. Molding is the one-time molding of molten glass through a mold, which is usually used for larger bottles, such as infusion bottles. The tube process has more steps and is more difficult. It has to go through two times of molding. First, the molten glass is pulled into a slender tube and molded once. Then, the glass tube is reprocessed and heated to make the bottom and neck. Finally, a tube bottle can be produced by secondary molding. However, the bottles produced by this process are relatively thinner, smaller capacity and more beautiful. Many vials of biologics, including vaccines, are relatively prone to this process.
Medium borosilicate glass not only has a high melting point, but also has a very important property when it is liquid, that is, high viscosity. With this material, whether it is a die or to pull out a slender and thin glass tube, the forming difficulty is much higher than that of ordinary molten glass.
At present, the domestic production technology of low borosilicate glass tubes and bottles has matured, but the independent medium borosilicate glass tubes need to be broken through urgently. At present, the main enterprises producing and selling neutral borosilicate glass tubes in the world are SCHOTT of Germany, KIMBLE of the United States and NEG of Japan, which account for more than 80% of the world's output of borosilicate glass tubes. Among them, Schott alone accounts for about 50% of the world's production of borosilicate glass.
China's borosilicate pharmaceutical glass tubes mainly rely on the processing and production of imported neutral borosilicate glass tubes purchased from abroad, and very few companies develop pharmaceutical neutral borosilicate glass tubes through their own kilns. Borosilicate glass tube companies in the
domestic layout include Shandong Pharmaceutical Glass, Zhengchuan Stock, Four-Star Glass, Kaisheng Junheng, Qibin Group, etc. And these major competitors are actively laying out the development of borosilicate pharmaceutical glass business, expanding production capacity and seizing the market. On the evening of March
5, Qibin Group announced that the company planned to build two high-performance electronic glass production lines in Luxian Economic Development Zone, Luzhou City, Sichuan Province, with a total investment of about 970 million yuan. On the same day, Fujian Pharmaceutical Glass, a holding subsidiary, planned to invest in the construction of two neutral borosilicate pharmaceutical glass tube production lines in Luxian Economic Development Zone, Luzhou City, Sichuan Province, with a total investment of about 780 million yuan. The pharmaceutical glass products of Fujian Pharmaceutical Glass are positioned as high-end pharmaceutical glass, and one production line of 25 tons per day and one production line of 40 tons per day have been built and put into operation.
Shandong Pharmaceutical Glass is one of the leading enterprises in the domestic pharmaceutical glass industry. It began to develop neutral borosilicate glass tubes in 2020. It is reported that at the beginning of 2022, the rate of good products of the first class has reached 50-60%. In the field of molded bottle subdivision, it sold more than 11 billion bottles in 2021, with a market share of 80%.
Linuo Tebo is also an important manufacturer of pharmaceutical glass in China, with sales of borosilicate pharmaceutical glass bottles accounting for more than 55%. The production line completed last year produces about 5,080 tons of molded bottles for borosilicate medicine, or about 70 million molded bottles. The company is also financing to continue the expansion of the production line of borosilicate pharmaceutical molded bottles.
According to the international Reportlinker report, the global pharmaceutical glass market will reach $ 22.05 billion in 2025, the growth rate of emerging markets in India and China will reach 9%, and China will become one of the major consumers of pharmaceutical glass packaging bottles.
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