CPHI Frankfurt 2022: Global pharma hits record high in annual CPhI Pharma Index

Pharma confidence in growth, innovation and manufacturing quality has reached record highs in the CPhI Annual Survey. The results announced at CPhI Frankfurt (1st to 3rd November, 2022) bode well for the industry’s prospects in 2023 and beyond.

The survey features insights from 400 global pharma companies, and is widely seen as a key barometer of the industry’s health. After confidence dipped significantly during the height of the pandemic (2020), there has been a global rebound with two years of rising scores. Ten out of the 12 (the US, Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Japan, India, Italy, France, China, Singapore, Korea, Spain) evaluated countries posted year-on-year gains.

In fact, the overall CPHI Pharma Index – a collateralised metric of all major ranking categories – has risen by more than eight per cent, the largest year-on-year gain in the survey’s six year history.

The US further cemented its position as the pharma industry’s leading country, increasing its scores at the head of the rankings, with both Germany and the UK seeing double digit growth. The UK has overtaken Japan to become the survey’s third ranked nation.

However, India has posted the most significant score change, ranking alongside leading western nations for the first time in the overall score. In the 2022 results, India again scored highly for growth potential, but has now complemented this with massive improvements in its quality scores.

Another notable trend is that the range of scores continues to decrease Year on Year (YoY). This suggests that the emerging pharma nations are improving quickly and narrowing the gap between the top and bottom, which will make global manufacturing much more competitive in the year ahead.

Looking at ‘API quality’, the giant manufacturing hubs of India and China have seen by far the biggest improvement. India has built on its gains in 2021 with a huge 15 per cent improvement. This is the first time in the survey’s history that an emerging pharma economy has drawn level with major western pharma nations for the quality of its API manufacturing. India is now level with both Switzerland and Japan, and only narrowly behind the UK. China, however, has also experienced an unprecedented surge in its reputation for API manufacturing, with a massive 25 per cent improvement in 2022. This brings the country in line with the quality scores for API manufacturers in Italy and France. Overall, general country confidence has risen for a third successive year, reaching its highest level. This means the industry is now more confident in its API manufacturing quality than at any point in the last six years.

For growth potential, the survey shows improved scores for all 12 major pharma economies, with scores this year by far the highest on record. The most notable findings are that the US has cemented its surprise lead from last year, and now has one of the highest growth scores in the survey’s history. China, by contrast, although posting a strong growth potential score, has fallen a little behind the other two nations (US and India) of the big three. Significantly, the UK has also improved its growth potential score again – to a pre-Brexit level – coming in narrowly behind Germany which was the other big mover in 2022.

“These findings are positive for pharma manufacturers and demonstrate that the industry believes they have made great strides to further improve quality. It’s also very encouraging that, as we open CPHI Frankfurt, we see such optimism for pharmaceutical production next year, with the industry bucking wider macroeconomic headwinds. The partnerships established this week at CPHI Frankfurt will be invaluable in helping deliver on this potential and I encourage the industry not only to meet in person, but to also use all the post-event digital partnering tools available,” added Adam Andersen, Executive Vice President, Informa Markets.