Olympics Affected GD Supply

The Beijing Olympics, the major sports ceremony in the world, has affected the supply of generic drugs (GDs) all over the world. The Olympics started on August 8, 2008 at Beijing, China. Beijing is also called as the Pharma capital of China. Large numbers of generic drugs manufacturing units are located at Beijing. As the Olympics were going to be start at Beijing, China government send an official order to all the generic drug manufacturing firms to stop the production of drugs because it was leading to the lots of pollution in the city.

China government asked these generic drug manufacturers to close their manufacturing units only for the duration of 20 days. It also maid a point that they can again start functioning as soon as the Olympics gets finished. China is major supplier of the generic drugs in the world market. Because of the Olympics China has to stop the production of generic drugs in Beijing. This has had “an unexpected side effect,” which is being felt internationally in the form of serious shortages of generic.

Generic drug supplies worldwide were affected when China decided to halt chemicals production in and around Beijing temporarily before the Olympics.

Africa’s has suffered due to shortage of generic drugs. The situation had been worsened by rising prices of fuel and commodities such as starch, used in making many generic drugs.

These had led to the trebling of prices in some instances, which local drug manufacturers had to absorb. Africa is supplier of the some ingredients of the drug to the China but as the production of generic drugs was absolutely stopped in China for few days, these African manufacturers have to suffer a lot.

No branded drugs are sold in the African market. Generic drugs have captured 95% market in the Africa. China is the leading supplier of the generic drugs to the Africa. As there was the shortage of supply of the generic drugs from China the markets in Africa suffered the losses.

In Africa, fixed exit price, which is set by government, did not take into consideration fluctuations in input costs. This has led to some smaller pharmaceutical companies, supplying generic and original brand-name drugs, opting to discontinue ranges. These factors had left South African pharmacists scrambling for medicine stocks including bronchodilators, antidepressants, diuretics, penicillin and even vitamin C.

This was a grave problem for the health department, which was promoting generics in order to make medicines cheaper for consumers. China even supplies the generic drugs to US and some European nations that are also facing the problems due to the decreased supply of generic drugs. They have suffered the losses in their business because of this.

China has now started the generic drug units in Beijing and is now again trying to cop with the market demands. These manufacturers have increased their production of the drugs to make up with the losses suffered. Even China government is helping these generic drug manufacturers by reducing the taxes on the generic drugs which they are importing. Thus, Olympics affected the generic drug supply all over the world. Now, China has declared that it will make-up the losses by providing the generic drug to all its customers at discount rates.