Medical gelatin, as the name suggests, is a type of gelatin used in the production of pharmaceutical products. Gelatin has a wide range of uses in the pharmaceutical industry, including hard capsules, soft capsules, plasma substitutes and coatings, due to its gel, water fixation, adhesion, solubility and other characteristics, as well as its chemical purity.
In the total production of gelatin in China, the production of medicinal gelatin accounts for nearly 30%. In the past decade or so, the production of medicinal gelatin has accounted for less than 10% of the total production. Nowadays, the medicinal gelatin exported from China can meet the quality standards of Western pharmacopoeia such as USP, EP, and the Japanese Pharmacopoeia. Since the outbreak of the economic crisis in 2008, the export quantity of medicinal gelatin in China has increased sharply.
So far, the two main uses of medicinal gelatin are to make soft and hard capsule shells and tablet coatings. In recent years, western pharmaceutical manufacturers have developed some new uses of gelatin, including special matrix materials for drug gel for specific purposes such as AIDS prevention, inner core coagulant and film coating agent for new tablets, etc. The sales of gelatin for capsules have slowed down in recent years due to the impact of plant capsule shells, which have taken away a considerable portion of the market share of medicinal gelatin.
According to predictions from foreign consulting companies, the total global demand for gelatin in the next few years will reach over 400000 tons, with medicinal gelatin accounting for 18% of the market share (about 70000 tons). With the continuous increase in labor costs and production costs in developed countries, many European and American merchants have imported gelatin raw materials from low labor cost countries such as China and India. Although China's current export volume only accounts for 13% of the international gelatin market, it is believed that with the promising prospect of gelatin, this share will continue to expand
