Expiring drug patents, including those of Pfizer´s Viagra, is not going to change the market in China, says retail analyst Ben Cavender at CNBC. Most of those drugs are anyway already available in China, he says. And the second-child hype most more materialize.
CNBC:
To be sure, not everyone expects the generic version of the storied blue pill will make much difference to China’s ED drug market, short-circuited by the country’s rocky relationship with intellectual property.
“The availability of cheap knock-off or grey market products — essentially the same formula — is already pretty high,” Ben Cavender, an analyst at China Market Research Group, told CNBC. “You can walk into any drugstore and get it for not a lot of money.”
Cavender also expects that most of the “recreational” users — or those who fall into the “fun to try” rather than health-related categories — will just continue to use grey-market products…
China’s efforts to nudge its birth-rate higher also aren’t likely to get a fillip either, Cavender said. Late last year, China eased its one-child policy, in place since the 1970s, allowing couples to have two children, if one parent is an only child.
But Cavender doesn’t believe health concerns have much to do with many couple’s lack of interest in a second child.
“They want careers and extra income. They aren’t rushing to have a second kid,” he said.
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