New York, August 2, 2021—Fortune announced the 2021 Fortune Global 500 on August 2. Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holding Co., Ltd. (SPH) (601607.SH, 02607.HK) ranked 437th on the list, climbing 36 spots since its debut last year, a testament to the company’s strength.
Fortune began publishing a combined list of the world’s 500 largest service and industrial corporations ranked by operating revenue in 1995. It is widely used as a measurement for business growth and operational efficiency. For the last 27 years, the Fortune Global 500 has been an authority to signal shifts in the business landscape and to measure the comprehensive strength of enterprises around the world.
Relentless Rise—Innovation-Driven High-quality Development
SPH is a nationwide state-owned pharmaceutical conglomerate with its main business covering the complete industrial chain of pharmaceutical R&D, manufacturing, distribution and retail. Since its restructuring in 2008 under the control of Shanghai Industrial Investment (Holdings) Co., Ltd. (SIIC), the Group has accelerated market-oriented reforms through organic growth and external M&As. It has gradually grown from a local pharmaceutical company to an industry leader in China, and now a pharmaceutical group among the world’s top 500.
Driven by scientific and technological innovation, SPH maintains its strategic focus and continues to forge ahead. As a leading enterprise in the industry, SPH has committed to pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution for years, strengthening the enterprise in the full industrial and commercial value chains. In 2020, SPH’s operating revenue reached RMB191.91 billion and its net profit was RMB5.61 billion.
In 2020, the Company’s revenue from pharmaceutical manufacturing was RMB23.74 billion, and the main business contributed profits of RMB2.25 billion. SPH has developed a full-cycle production and supply system covering chemicals, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and a variety of dosage forms. The number of products with annual industrial sales revenue of over 100 million has increased to 42. As one of the Top 50 Global Pharma Companies, SPH has maintained fast growth of its manufacturing segment by allocating necessary resources and focusing on best-selling products. It will continue to meet pressing clinical needs, further invest in innovation, actively allocate resources, accelerate in-house innovations and partnerships, and move towards an innovation-driven R&D pharmaceutical company.
The Company’s revenue from pharmaceutical distribution was RMB168.17 billion in 2020, and the main business contributed profits of RMB2.51 billion. SPH has not only designed a new online and offline pharmaceutical retail format and a pharmaceutical commercial distribution network covering various medical institutions, but also constructed the largest drug import platform among Chinese pharmaceutical distributors. The Company continues to leverage its own platform advantages and promote digitalization to strengthen the full-cycle services of novel drugs based on DTP specialized pharmacy and the “Internet +” services for drugs against common & chronic diseases, using electronic prescription and a cloud-based pharmacy.
SPH keeps expediting the coordinated transformation of integrated manufacturing and service in the path to innovation. Focusing on the construction of the Shanghai Biopharmaceutical Industrial Cluster Base, the Company has made great efforts to establish the SPH Baoshan Medical Science Park and SPH Biopharmaceutical Industrial Base and build a national-level industrial innovation platform. Based on national strategies, it has created an ecosystem of industry-university-research integration, increased investment in R&D, accelerated drug discovery, and developed a distinctive innovation model of in-house research coupled with business development (“Independent R&D + BD”). As of the first quarter of 2021, the company has 25 innovative drugs in the R&D pipeline, a total of 4 pipeline products in Phase III clinical trials, 25 varieties (31 specifications) passing the generic-quality consistency evaluation (GQCE), and 17 drugs against 28 rare diseases (so far, 15 projects have been evaluated) according to the platform for rare disease drugs.
Continuous Supply—New Chapter for a Healthy China
In the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, SPH proactively responded to the country’s call and went all out in the fight against the coronavirus. Relying on its nationwide warehousing and logistics supply chain system, the Company timely met the demand for medical supplies in this critical time. Meanwhile, SPH actively expanded its industrial layout with the purpose of pursuing the Healthy China 2030 Strategy. It achieved strategic partnerships with CanSino Biologics Inc. (CanSinoBIO) and Chengdu Wesker Biopharm (Wesker) on vaccine development, industrialization and distribution, August and November 2020 respectively. SPH paid close attention to the construction of the vaccine base, and increased its investment capital in SPH-CanSinoBIO to RMB1.21 billion this May. At present, the vaccine project is progressing in an orderly manner. Its annual production capacity is estimated to be 200 million doses, which will bridge the gap between demand and supply of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide, and lay a solid foundation for building the large-scale vaccine production base against major infectious diseases in Shanghai, in order to protect people’s health and lives.
SPH remains true to its original aspiration, contributes to human health with efficiency and quality, takes various measures to foster the industrial development pattern and write a new chapter for a healthy China.
The epidemic also set the stage for the rapid expansion of the “Internet + medical” field. SPH leveraged its strengths in Internet medical services to seize the opportunity of industry transformation and boost digitalization at SPH. The SPH Big Data Command Platform has been established to facilitate the digitalization and achieve high-quality development of the enterprise.
This year, with unremitting efforts in pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution, SPH has once again been included in the list of “Pharm Exec’s Top 50 Companies”, moving up six spots to 42nd. The Company has promoted R&D innovation, built multiple R&D platforms, and increased its clinical pipeline products. At the start of China’s “14th Five-Year Plan”, SPH will witness its continuous rise among the world’s top 500, uphold its pillar strategies (innovation, intensive development, globalization and integration of finance and real economy), endeavor to accelerate digitalization, continue to pursue innovation-driven development, and strive to build a globally competitive pharmaceutical conglomerate in China.