Recently, the State Council, in response to the comprehensive prevention and control mechanism of New Coronavirus pneumonia, decided to add antigen detection on the basis of nucleic acid detection. After that, the products of many companies were quickly approved, and the major pharmacies, jd.com and other platforms were open to purchase.
According to analysts’ prediction, the market scale of covid-19 antigen detection reagent in China is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan. Relevant companies are working overtime to catch up with production. As the “backbone” behind covid-19 antigen detection reagent, raw material manufacturers Qianfan are competing. How much incremental market space does the industry have?
related companies work overtime for production
Compared with nucleic acid detection, antigen detection has the advantages of convenience, quickness and low cost. The results can be obtained in more than ten minutes after detection. Ordinary people can also easily realize home detection. With the opening of the Chinese market, covid-19 detection market will open up a huge incremental market for antigen detection on the basis of the original nucleic acid detection market.
As of March 22, seven provinces across the country have rapidly completed the centralized purchase of covid-19 antigen reagent, which is known as the “fastest centralized purchase in history”. At present, the lowest publicity price is 7.9 yuan / person. From the perspective of the total daily supply capacity promised by the five companies of Lujin Alliance (the average bid winning price is 8.5 yuan / person) that completed the first centralized purchase, according to this single day supply capacity, theoretically, the maximum output value of a single family is 72 million yuan a day, which is only the purchase volume of the two provinces. It can be seen how much space there is in the national antigen detection market.
In the face of such a strong market demand, companies whose products can obtain listing qualification and have the production capacity of antigen detection reagents welcome major benefits.
An insider told reporters that the company is working overtime. “At the beginning of opening up the Chinese market, the demand has soared. Whoever has enough production capacity can occupy the market.” He said that according to his understanding, the whole industry is fighting for speed and capacity.
The above industry insiders believe that the market space of covid-19 antigen detection reagent in China may not only be in epidemic prevention and control. “Even if covid-19 specific drugs are on the market on a large scale, home self-test reagent products may also become routine test products, which have a long-term market like pregnancy test rods,” he said.
Sinolink Securities Co.Ltd(600109) analysts expressed the same view. In its research report, it pointed out that if covid-19 drugs are widely used in combination with testing in the U.S. market, it is expected that the demand for antigen self-test products will change from emergency demand to normalization demand. At the same time, covid-19 antigen home testing may be further widely used in other regions of the world in the future.
Then, in the face of the sudden opening of the 100 billion market and the needs of China’s recent epidemic prevention and control, can the production capacity of Chinese manufacturers keep up with the market demand?
The answer is yes. According to statistics, the products of many companies have obtained foreign qualifications and large orders before, and the company has already carried out rapid production expansion. At present, the production capacity of export enterprises is generally 5-7 million people / day, and the daily output of some enterprises is even more than 10 million people.
At present, the market is still in the stage of “capacity competition”. There is a view in the industry that “production capacity is related to whether we can squeeze into the finals.” Among the five enterprises that have won the bid of Lujin alliance, Tianjin boosses Biotechnology Co., Ltd. promised to supply 8 million people per day, followed by Zhejiang Orient Gene Biotech Co.Ltd(688298) promised to supply 5 million people per day.
In an interview with the media on March 12, Beijing jinwofu biological staff revealed that after obtaining the approval of the National Health Commission, the order volume in China has reached 10 million people. The company will increase the production capacity of antigen detection kit to 1.7 million people / day, and 2000 workers will work in two shifts to start production to meet the needs of the Chinese market as much as possible.
raw material company Qianfan Jingfa
How will the 100 billion market of covid-19 antigen detection reagents in China be divided up?
According to the reporter, compared with covid-19 nucleic acid detection reagent, antigen detection reagent requires more process technology and raw materials in the production process, but the unit cost gap is not large; Although the entry threshold is not high, it is difficult to do well and meet national standards. The selection of raw materials is an important link to determine the quality of reagents.
The main raw materials of covid-19 antigen detection reagent products include antibodies, quality control products (lines), reference materials, etc. Therefore, when relevant companies prepare goods urgently, manufacturers with the production capacity of key raw materials can speak with facts.
It is understood that covid-19 antigen detection reagent products of some manufacturers are self-produced, and there are also enterprises specialized in providing raw materials for a certain link. For example, enterprises related to antibody raw materials include Feipeng Biology (to be listed), Sino Biological Inc(301047) , Acrobiosystems Co.Ltd(301080) , etc; The representative enterprises of NC film and consumables are Shenzhen baishuikang, Shantou Yineng, Xiamen jiela, etc; Packaging material enterprises include Shanghai Haishun New Pharmaceutical Packaging Co.Ltd(300501) etc; In addition, there are Zhejiang Gongdong Medical Technology Co.Ltd(605369) , Getein Biotech Inc(603387) , Shenzhen Changhong Technology Co.Ltd(300151) , Guangzhou Improve Medical Instruments Co.Ltd(300030) and other auxiliary materials.
The gross profit margin of different raw material companies is different. Among them, having antibodies with high sensitivity and specificity to pathogens is the key raw material of this kind of products. Its quality directly determines the quality of reagents and the accuracy of final diagnosis results. It has high technical barriers, long R & D cycle and relatively higher gross profit margin. Yiqiao Shenzhen, Acrobiosystems Co.Ltd(301080) , Feipeng biology, etc. are the first batch of enterprises to complete the R & D of reagent raw materials.
The covid-19 products of Feipeng biology, which is currently applying for IPO on the gem, contributed 697 million yuan and 869 million yuan respectively in 2020 and January June 2021. As a brand deeply rooted in the upstream of IVD for many years, Feipeng biology is called “the invisible champion behind covid-19 antigen detection reagent selling well in the world”.
It is understood that since the beginning of covid-19 outbreak, Feipeng biology has carried out rapid research on covid-19 antibody, the core raw material of antigen detection. It is an enterprise that launched the product earlier in the industry. According to its prospectus, the company has developed a series of covid-19 related products including covid-19 antigen detection reagent raw materials covering five platforms, including colloidal gold, chemiluminescence, fluorescence, enzyme immunity and biochemistry, covering most application scenarios related to covid-19 diagnosis.
Feipeng biology is now a global supplier of core raw materials for antigen detection. This is due to its strong underlying biotechnology platform, technical services and supply capacity. As early as April 2020, Feipeng biology has launched its first technology platform product for antigen detection, becoming one of the enterprises that launched antigen detection products earlier in the industry.
At present, the detection results of recombinant N protein of Omicron and other important mutant strains (more than 200 kinds) are not affected; In terms of product services, Feipeng biology not only has a professional technical support team, but also provides customers with a full set of raw material use schemes to help customers speed up product development and meet the needs of different customers. In addition, at the time of the sudden outbreak of the market, maintaining a stable supply capacity is also the key for Feipeng biology to stand out from a large number of IVD raw material enterprises.
Not long ago, the State Food and Drug Administration’s Center for examination and approval organized the key points of technical review of the key points of technical review of New Coronavirus antigen detection reagent registration (Trial Implementation), and requested that the products registered for registration should provide relevant materials such as the selection and source of raw materials, preparation process and quality criteria. This puts forward higher requirements for the registration applicant’s raw material selection, reagent quality control and other technologies. Because of this, some raw material manufacturers with poor quality may be eliminated, and the market may soon usher in the first round of reshuffle.
