Teva sees higher active pharmaceutical ingredient sales in 2016

The Jerusalem drug manufacturer posted revenue of $21.9bn (€20.7bn) for 2016, up 11% on the previous year. It attributed much of the growth to Actavis Generics, which it acquired last summer for $40.4bn.

TAPI – Teva’s standalone API manufacturing business – also saw revenues increase. A spokeswoman told us drug ingredient sales to external customers increased 4% year-on-year to $776m. She also confirmed that about 52% of Teva’s API supply comes from TAPI.

APIs are not Teva’s biggest source of revenue. The firm makes most of its money through products like the soon to be off​ patent multiple sclerosis medicine Copaxone (glatiramer) and generic drugs.

But Petah Tikva-based TAPI – which with an over-the-counter (OTC) unit is part of Teva’s generic medicines business – says it has a portfolio of 370 APIs and that it supplies more than 1,000 customers in 100 countries.

TAPI claims it is one of the world’s largest drug ingredient suppliers.

API market​

Determining the validity of the claim is a challenge as many API suppliers – including potential market leaders like Lonza – do not provide figures for ingredient sales.

Among those suppliers that do report API sales, TAPI’s claim appears to stand up.

For example, US API firm Cambrex’s reported revenue of $491.5m for 2016, up 13% on the previous year.

Indian supplier Aurobindo, which says it has a portfolio of 200 APIs, reported drug ingredient revenue of INR28.8bn ($430m) (page 7​) for fiscal 2016.

Similarly, Dr. Reddy’s – which says it has a portfolio of 60 APIs - generated $338m​ from API drug ingredients and services in 2016.

Mylan​ - which also claims to be one of the worl'd leading API suppliers - includes drug ingredient sales in its "rest of world" generic revenue which was $570m in 2015.

Manufacturing capacity​

The Teva unit has manufacturing facilities in Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Israel, India, China, Mexico and the US.

When asked if TAPI is likely to expand API manufacturing capacity the spokeswoman told us “We don’t disclose investment of specific business units, however, our overall capital expenditure in 2017 is expected to be around $1.1bn​.”