Due to low entry barriers, the Chinese pharmaceutical glass market is faced with serious overcapacity of medium and low-end products, and is developing sluggishly.
At present, developed countries prefer first-class waterproof neutral borosilicate glass, while China still generally uses low borosilicate glass, sodium-calcium glass and ‘semi-neutral borosilicate glass’, all of which cannot meet neutral chemical stability requirements.
As for high-end products and prefilled injection system glass, China mainly relies on the import of foreign brands such as Germany’s Schott and Gerresheimer.
After years of development and competition, the China’s penetration of its own pharmaceutical glass market is still not high, but there have been competitive leading players in some market segments mainly in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong.
Shandong Pharmaceutical Glass, for example, is one of the top five Chinese prefilled syringe suppliers, and has a capacity of 50 million units/a.
This remains a low market share compared to Schott’s joint venture in China (Schott Xin Kang Pharmaceutical Packaging Co.) which can produce 1-1.5 billion pharmaceutical glass bottles (vials and ampule bottles) each year.
In 2013, China's pharmaceutical glass bottle market capacity amounted to 80 billion pieces with the weight of 250,000-300,000 tons.
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