API Pharmaceutical Intermediates

Short for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient, API mainly refers to the active ingredient of the drug, which is also the basis of the pharmacological action of the drug. API is a pharmaceutically active substance prepared by chemical synthesis, plant extraction, or biotechnology. According to its source, API can be divided into chemical synthesis active pharmaceutical ingredients and natural chemical active pharmaceutical ingredients.

The chemical synthesis API medicine can further be divided into inorganic synthesis drugs and organic synthesis drugs. While the Inorganic API medicine uses inorganic compounds (extremely rare elements), such as aluminum hydroxide, magnesium trisilicate, etc. for the treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcers, organic synthetic API medicine are drugs (such as aspirin, chloramphenicol, caffeine, etc.) that are mainly made from basic organic chemical materials through a series of organic chemical reactions.

Natural chemical active pharmaceutical ingredients can also be divided into biochemical drugs and phytochemical drugs according to their sources. Antibiotics are generally made by microbial fermentation, which belongs to the category of biochemistry. In recent years, many semisynthetic antibiotics are a combination of biosynthesis and chemosynthesis. Among API ingredients, organic synthetic drugs account for the largest proportion in variety, yield, and output value, which is the main pillar of the chemical-pharmaceutical industry. The quality of API pharmaceutical ingredients determines the quality of preparation, so its quality standards are very strict.  All countries in the world have formulated strict national pharmacopeia standards over the API pharmaceutical industry.