Producer
Zhejiang Medicine Co., Ltd.
Zhejiang Medicine Co., Ltd. (Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China; Shanghai Stock Exchange: 600216; ~¥8B revenue) is one of China's largest pharmaceutical and vitamin manufacturers, producing Vitamin E (all-rac-alpha-tocopherol and acetate), Vitamin A, Vitamin D3, and Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) for both human pharmaceutical and animal feed markets. Zhejiang Medicine is part of the dominant Chinese cluster of vitamin API producers that collectively supply 60-90% of global feedstock for vitamins C, D3, and several B-vitamins. Its Vitamin E production (synthetic dl-alpha-tocopherol) directly competes with BASF and dsm-firmenich in the global animal feed premix market. Zhejiang Medicine's Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is sold under the Weishida brand and has been implicated in the 2005-2012 US court case (In re Vitamin C Antitrust Litigation) alleging that Chinese Vitamin C producers coordinated prices and quantities in violation of US antitrust law — the US Second Circuit ruled in 2021 that the coordination was not exempt from US antitrust law, reversing a lower court ruling on foreign sovereign compulsion.
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Vitamin E (Tocopherols)
40%Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid)
30%Vitamin A & D3
20%Pharmaceutical APIs
10%
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Origin2021
Zhejiang Medicine Co. was founded in Hangzhou as part of the Chinese pharmaceutical and vitamin industrial development of the 1980s-2000s. The company grew as China became the dominant global producer of vitamins — particularly Vitamin C, where Chinese producers collectively moved from minimal market share in the 1980s to controlling approximately 80% of global Vitamin C production by 2005, displacing Roche, BASF, and other Western producers through aggressive cost reduction and scale expansion. Zhejiang Medicine and three other Chinese Vitamin C producers (Northeast Pharmaceutical Group, Weisheng Pharmaceutical, North China Pharmaceutical Group) were named defendants in a landmark US antitrust lawsuit (In re Vitamin C Antitrust Litigation), filed in 2005 by US purchasers alleging price-fixing coordination between 1997-2006. The Chinese government submitted an amicus brief arguing that the coordination was required by Chinese state policy — the foreign sovereign compulsion defense. The US District Court accepted this defense in 2013; the Second Circuit reversed in 2021, ruling that Chinese state direction did not automatically exempt the companies from US antitrust law. The case illuminated the tension between Chinese industrial policy (which encourages coordination among state-linked producers to control exports) and US competition law, with Chinese Vitamin C producers as the test case.
US Court of Appeals Second Circuit ↗