Pharmaceutical Excipients Market Overview
The key trend witnessed in the global pharmaceutical excipients market is the advancement in the field of nanotechnology and its integration to the product chemistry of pharmaceutical excipients. This integration of nanocoating to drugs is likely to offer a plethora of advantages, including lower amount of lubricant requirement, improvement in film properties, and improve targeted dose delivery in hosts.
Pharmaceutical excipients are natural or synthetic inactive substances that are used alongside the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) of a drug. These substances perform their functions without altering or modifying the therapeutic action of the active pharmaceutical ingredient. Pharmaceutical excipients are used to offer ease of administration of drug by intended route, improve dosing compliance, ensure consistency and control of drug bioavailability, improve active pharmaceutical ingredient stability, and ensure robust and reproducible physical product.
In the report, the pharmaceutical excipients market is segmented on the basis of type, function, formulation, and region. Based on type, the market is categorized into organic chemicals and inorganic chemicals. The organic chemicals category is further classified into oleochemicals, carbohydrates, petrochemicals, and proteins. Whereas, the inorganic chemicals are segregated into calcium phosphates, metal oxides, halite, calcium carbonates, and calcium sulfates.
The oleochemicals include fatty alcohols, mineral stearates, and glycerin. The carbohydrates are further divided into sugars, cellulose, and starch. The sugars category comprises of actual sugars and sugar alcohols. The actual sugars include lactose, sucrose, and dextrose. Moreover, the sugar alcohols are bifurcated into sorbitol and mannitol. The cellulose category is further classified into microcrystalline cellulose, cellulose ethers, croscarmellose sodium, and cellulose esters. In addition, the starch category comprises modified starch, dried starch, and converted starch. The petrochemicals include glycols, povidones, mineral hydrocarbons, and acrylic polymers. The glycols category constitutes polyethylene glycol and propylene glycol. The mineral hydrocarbons are further sub-divided into petroleum jelly, mineral waxes, and mineral oils.
On the basis of function, the pharmaceutical excipients market is classified into diluents, binders, disintegrants, glidants, lubricants, tablet coating and films, and colorants. Diluents, which include sugar compounds such as lactose, dextrin, glucose, sucrose, sorbitol, etc., and inorganic compounds such as silicates, salts of calcium and magnesium, sodium chloride, etc., enable accurate dosing of potent ingredients.
Binders are mainly natural or synthetic polymers such as starch, sugar alcohols, and cellulose derivatives that are used to bind tablet ingredients together to give shape and provide mechanical strength. Disintegrants aid dispersion of the tablets in the gastrointestinal tract, releasing the active ingredient along with increasing the surface area for dissolution. Glidants like colloidal anhydrous silicon, are used in reducing the friction and adhesion between particles and improves the flow of powders during tablet manufacturing. Colorants are mainly synthetic dyes used to improve patient acceptability, aid identification, and prevent counterfeiting.
The pharmaceutical excipients market is classified on basis of formulation into oral, topical, parenteral. The oral formulations include tablets and capsules. The capsules category is bifurcated into hard gelation capsules and soft gelatin capsules.
Based on region, the pharmaceutical excipients market is categorized into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. This emerging market in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to witness a robust growth during the forecast period, owing to the availability of cheap labor and lower cost of the raw materials. Countries like Brazil, India, and China are expected to be the major contributors in the growth of the market mainly due to the rising per capita income and increase in the number of companies from the developed regions willing to outsource their excipients manufacturing activities due to low manufacturing and labor costs in the region.
Pharmaceutical Excipients Market Dynamics
Drivers
The pharmaceutical excipients market is expected to grow during the forecast period due to increasing utilization of parenteral products owing to rise in the global burden of chronic and lifestyle diseases, and heavy investments by the pharmaceutical companies on the development of biologics.
Additionally, adoption of modern science like nanotechnology to impart innovative functions to the excipients used for targeting specific functionality of the active ingredients, resulting in reduced drug toxicity, a major challenge faced by the pharmaceutical industry, is also propelling the pharmaceutical excipients market during the forecast period.
Restraints
The growth of the pharmaceutical excipients market is hampered to a certain extent by the factors like declining investments in R&D by excipients producers, and increasing regulatory requirements for manufacturing sites.
Opportunities
The demand for excipients is increasing in the emerging markets like Asia-Pacific and Latin America, therefore proper expansion planning, focus on various R&D and innovations to launch new products could offer high potential for growth in the regional market.
Pharmaceutical Excipients Market — Competitive Landscape
Business expansions, new product launches, mergers and acquisitions, and collaborations with educational universities are the key strategies adopted by most companies in the pharmaceutical excipients market. The need for innovative functional excipients in the pharmaceutical industry will lead to innovations in the market during the forecast period. Owing to this strategy, leading players are continuously introducing several advanced excipients and modified categories of existing excipients in the market.
Some of the major companies operating in the global pharmaceutical excipients market are Archer Daniels Midland Company, Ashland, BASF SE, Associated British Foods plc, Dow Chemical Company, Croda International plc, FMC Corporation, Evonik Industries AG, The Lubrizol Corporation, and ROQUETTE.
The study provides the historical as well the forecast market size data for various countries, including the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Japan, China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.
