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1、 Industry trend: Policy driven surge in demand for laminated rubber plugs

With the tightening of drug quality supervision in China and the convergence of international standards, laminated rubber stoppers are accelerating their replacement of traditional rubber stoppers due to their high barrier properties, stability, and safety. The 2025 "Guidelines for the Development Plan of the Pharmaceutical Industry" clearly lists new pharmaceutical packaging materials as a key development area, promoting the continuous increase of market penetration rate of laminated rubber stoppers. According to data from Zhiyan Consulting, the market size of Chinese medicinal rubber stoppers will reach 6.227 billion yuan in 2023, and is expected to grow to 6.803 billion yuan in 2024, with an average annual growth rate of over 8%.



Technical upgrade direction:



Breakthrough in film coating technology: Hualan Co., Ltd. achieves strict control of surface particles on film coated rubber plugs through core technologies such as film pretreatment and overlay treatment, adapting to the packaging needs of highly active drugs and serving over a thousand pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Hengrui.

Material innovation: The Glomax LL calcined kaolin developed by Imerys Group empowers the dynamic sealing performance of rubber plugs, reducing the self-healing time after puncture to milliseconds and increasing the microbial barrier rate by 32%.

2、 Enterprise News: Domestic leaders accelerate internationalization and intelligent transformation

Hualan Group leads the way in domestic substitution

As a leading domestic enterprise in laminated rubber plugs, Hualan Group has achieved a leap through three key decisions: entering the field of butyl rubber plugs in 1998, conquering laminated rubber plug technology in 2005, and raising 2 billion yuan to upgrade its smart factory through listing on the ChiNext board in 2021. Its products have covered all scenarios such as infusion, freeze-drying, monoclonal antibodies, etc., and are accelerating the layout of overseas production capacity in Mexico, Canada, and other places to avoid US tariff barriers.

China Resources Technology deeply cultivates segmented markets

Hubei Huarun Technology has firmly taken the lead in the segmented market with its butyl rubber stoppers for oral liquids (with a market share of over 60%) and sealing rings for active pharmaceutical ingredients (with a market share of over 80%). From January to October 2025, the output value of its oral liquid rubber stopper will reach 130 million yuan, and it is expected to exceed 160 million yuan for the whole year. The company achieves precision production of 7-46mm full-size rubber plugs through 16 intelligent processes such as laser detection and robot spraying, and participates in the formulation of national standards.

Shandong Medicinal Glass and Xiangyi Technology's Differentiation Breakthrough

Shandong Medicinal Glass relies on its national production base layout, and its revenue from butyl rubber stoppers will increase by 12.66% to 256 million yuan in 2023, with a gross profit margin of 24.55%.

Xiangyi Technology has entered the high-end market with insulin pen syringe dual color pads (unit price 0.5 yuan/piece), overcoming the problem of repeated puncture sealing, with an annual production capacity of 10 billion pieces.

3、 Technological Innovation: Breakthroughs in Intelligence and Sustainability

Intelligent manufacturing upgrade

Hualan Group has introduced a digital management system to achieve precise control over the entire production process of rubber plugs; China Resources Technology has developed the sixth generation spraying robot and automatic edge removal device, reducing single line labor costs by 75%.

Application of environmentally friendly materials

Glomax LL calcined kaolin and other mineral additives have reduced the carbon footprint of rubber plugs to 1.8kg CO ₂ e/kg, while achieving zero VOC emissions in production, in line with the IECQ QC 080000 sustainable standard.

The emergence of patented technologies

Jiangxi Hualin Optoelectronics' "Adaptive Adhesive Filling Plug" patent (CN119238865A) uses a conical plug body and sliding base design to achieve variable diameter adjustment during the filling process, adapting to precision manufacturing needs in fields such as 3C electronics and medical devices.

4、 Challenges and Prospects: Concentration Enhancement and Global Competition

Despite the continuous expansion of the industry, Chinese pharmaceutical stopper companies still face challenges such as low-level homogeneous competition, rising raw material costs (such as fluctuations in medical plastic prices), and stricter regulations in Europe and America. Zhiyan Consulting predicts that the industry will accelerate integration in the next five years, and leading companies with technological advantages (such as Hualan Group and Shandong Pharmaceutical Glass) are expected to seize over 20% of the global market share through overseas certifications (WHO pre certification, FDA 510k).



Future growth points:



Biopharmaceutical support: The outbreak of mRNA vaccines and GLP-1 drugs has led to a demand for high value-added rubber stoppers.

Exploring emerging markets: Localized production projects in Africa, Southeast Asia, and other regions (such as Tiankang Medical's Rwanda factory) will become new growth poles