On January 13th, at the first "Three Highs and Three Slows" Comprehensive Prevention and Control Industry Conference held in Taizhou, AstraZeneca announced that it had officially signed a new production line investment cooperation agreement with Taizhou Pharmaceutical High tech Zone, investing 190 million yuan to build the Anda Shi new production line.
It is reported that the Taizhou base is the global production and supply base of AstraZeneca diabetes products, with an estimated annual output value of 10 billion yuan. The reporter from First Financial News learned that AstraZeneca's "flagship product" Andatan (Dapagliflozin) is also produced at its Taizhou base. This product is expected to exceed 1 billion US dollars in sales in China this year, surpassing Teresa to become AstraZeneca's largest variety.
Andalu is a new type of compound preparation for type 2 diabetes, Daggligin Metformin Sustained Release Tablet, approved by AstraZeneca in China on November 22, 2023. It is an anti hyperglycemic drug combining Daggligin (SGLT2 inhibitor) and Metformin Hydrochloride Sustained Release Tablet, and it is also the only compound preparation of SGLT2 inhibitor and Metformin Hydrochloride Sustained Release Tablet taking once a day at a fixed dose in China.
It is worth mentioning that Anda Shi, which was just launched last year, has been included in the medical insurance negotiation directory of that year. The industry predicts that the peak sales of this drug may not be less than 3 billion yuan in the coming years.
According to relevant data, the global hypoglycemic drug market size in 2022 is approaching 60 billion US dollars, and major multinational pharmaceutical companies are actively laying out related drug pipelines.
According to the data cited by AstraZeneca, there are currently 330 million patients with cardiovascular diseases, 120 million people with chronic kidney disease and 141 million people with diabetes in China. Among them, more than 29% of patients have "three highs", where two or more risk factors coexist, leading to a doubling of the risk of serious cardiovascular events, which will further increase the economic burden of patients.
In addition, there are nearly 100 million patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease over the age of 20 in China, and chronic heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease often coexist. The patient's condition is complex and the prognosis is poor, requiring cardiopulmonary bypass.
Professor Ge Junbo, an academician of the CAS Member and director of cardiology department of Zhongshan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, pointed out at the "three high and three slow" comprehensive prevention and control industry conference that China is a big country of cardiovascular disease, and cardiovascular disease has a huge impact on national health and even social development. Hyperglycemia, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia are closely related to cardiovascular diseases. Early implementation of the three highs co management is of great significance for achieving heart and kidney protection and improving patient health. At the same time, strengthening close cooperation with specialties such as kidneys, endocrine, and respiratory systems, and forming multidisciplinary collaborative teams are equally important.
Experts said that diabetes is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. The biggest problem diabetes patients face clinically is heart and kidney complications. Professor Shen Jie, Dean of the Eighth Affiliated Hospital of Southern Medical University, said that more than one third of type 2 diabetes patients have cardiovascular diseases, and one in every three type 2 diabetes patients has diabetes nephropathy, which has become a huge challenge for diabetes management.
Professor Liu Bicheng, Vice Chairman of the Society of Nephrology of the Chinese Medical Association, Dean of the School of Medicine at Southeast University, and Director of the Institute of Nephrology at Southeast University, believes that chronic kidney disease in China currently has the characteristics of high incidence, high incidence of combined cardiovascular disease, and high mortality rate, and has become an important public health issue in China. Among them, hypertension, diabetes and other secondary chronic kidney disease patients have accounted for more than 40% of the patients with this disease. It is urgent to strengthen the early screening of diabetes and hypertension patients and intervene in chronic kidney disease. It is recommended that diabetes and hypertension patients should be screened for kidney disease every year.
In recent years, innovative compound preparations in the field of diabetes continue to emerge. Last year, Saiyining, a compound preparation of Sanofi for type 2 diabetes, was launched in China. This drug, combined with insulin glargine and GLP-1 drug Risenatide, is suitable for adults with type 2 diabetes who have poor glycemic control.
In the future, more innovative mechanisms of hypoglycemic drugs are expected to gradually enter the Chinese market. As two leading players in the field of type 2 hypoglycemic drugs, both Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have conducted large-scale clinical trials of heavyweight hypoglycemic drugs with more indications in China.
Novo Nordisk released a phase III clinical trial SELECT data at the 2023 American Heart Association Scientific Annual Meeting (AHA 2023), which showed that the GLP-1 class drug Smegglutide can reduce the risk of major cardiovascular disease by 20%; In addition, according to the company's latest research in October last year, smeglutide has a positive effect in delaying renal failure in diabetes patients, reaching the set therapeutic standard in advance, and stopping the clinical trial in advance.
Professor Ji Linong of Peking University People's Hospital said at the Andashu listing meeting that the treatment and management of type 2 diabetes need to focus on the strategy of both reducing blood sugar and improving cardiac and renal outcomes. He also said that medication compliance is very important for disease management of diabetes patients. Research shows that patients with type 2 diabetes in China need to take 3-6 drugs at the same time, and the drug compliance of patients who only take one oral hypoglycemic drug is 45% higher than that of patients who take two drugs at the same time during a continuous year.