‣ manufacturing organic chemicals , it became more focussed on the agrochemical sector , where its huge pent-up demand was better able to adapt to the scale and sophistication of the government run factories built in the 1960s to the 1980s . Indian companies also benefited from the availability of a broad range of cheap intermediates and happily became very dependent on China for them . 2 By the end of the 2000s , the global fine chemical industry had shifted its axis towards China ( Figure 2 ). It was now quite clear that both India and China had been making significant inroads down the value chain , with India starting to export formulated pharmaceuticals and China becoming an ever more important source of agrochemical AIs for the global generic industry . This move downstream has continued right up until the present day , with both India supplying intermediates and even AIs to the innovative sector companies as well .
COVID changes
As the coronavirus pandemic emerged in early 2020 , shortages of the starting materials for several APIs became evident when hopes rose that some existing drug treatments might be used to treat its symptoms . Several API producers now realised that the ultimate raw material for producing their products depended upon just one or two sources , very often in China . Politically motivated outbursts about how Europe and the US had become over-dependent on India for pharmaceuticals spurred the creation of ‘ national champions ’ in the US and France . The suggestion that France needed to be self-sufficient in paracetamol ( acetaminophen ), reported in the press in June 2020 , was one of the more questionable announcements to have emerged . 3 The growing concern that India had become too dependent on Chinese intermediates was also revealed when shortages of key raw materials and intermediates were revealed following company closures as a result of China ’ s pandemic lockdown . In attempting to understand how this situation has arisen , it must be emphasised that the internationalisation of the fine chemical and bioscience industries has been largely driven by the fact that these industries serve two of the basic needs of mankind : food and good health . All governments need access to the maximum number of life-saving drugs and the benefits of the latest crop protection technologies . However , from the perspective of the fine chemical industry , internationalisation has led to a severe decline in business in the US and Europe . In the agrochemical sector , in particular , as the industry matured , many crop treatments remained effective and innovation became targeted towards problems that proved harder to solve or where earlier solutions ceased to be satisfactory or acceptable .
18 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981