The first thing that comes to your mind when discussing the pharmaceutical industry is companies that produce medicines. All over the globe, there are lots of companies that make medicines.
From big pharma companies able to make medicines on a patient level. Of course, everything in between. All these medicine makers need APIs to produce medicines. But what are APIs?
What are APIs?
People take medicines to cure, diagnose, treat, or prevent a disease. The most medication contains a couple of ingredients. The most important is the API, which stands for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient. This is the actual substance in the medicine that has to do the work in your body.
For example, the API in Aspirin is “acetylsalicylic acid.” This API will try to fight the pain of your fever or headache. Some medicines carry the name of the API. For instance, the API of Paracetamol is “paracetamol“. To make a pill, you’ll need more ingredients than just the API. That’s where excipients come in. These ingredients are used to give the pill, for example, volume, a sweet flavor, or a color.
The term API is not only used in the pharmaceutical industry but also in the web developers community the term API is common. For them, however, it stands for “Application Programming Interface.”
How and where are APIs made?
The API market alone is already a multi-billion dollar market. APIs are mainly produced in large production plants. It’s a complex chemical process of several steps. It’s made from starting materials which can be a raw material or intermediate. Back in the days, pharma companies made and formulated the API and medicine in their home countries.
Over the past few decades, many companies have outsourced their API manufacturing process to Asia to cut costs. Today, India and China are the largest API-producing countries. Some of the largest suppliers are Aurobindo, Dr. Reddy’s, Cipla and SUN Pharma. They are all founded or based in India. But, since most starting materials are made in China, China is the root source of most APIs in the world. APIs are often made in powder form and sold in large quantities to drug manufacturers.
