Quantify how much of a lane is shipped by traders versus direct manufacturers. High trader share is procurement margin leaking out of your supply.
The India to Tajikistan lane runs at 67.5% trader share in 2024, holding steady from 68.5% in 2022. By contrast, the India to US lane is 1.2% trader / 98.8% manufacturer-direct. The lane geometry, not the molecule, is the dominant predictor of intermediation: 55 of 341 lane-years in 2024 sit above the 30% trader-heavy threshold.
A single lane to investigate, or a portfolio to scan for trader-heavy candidates. Each lane returns trader share, manufacturer share, and total lane value.
Each exporter on the lane is classified as a manufacturer (active DMF, known plant) or a trader (no plant attribution). Shares aggregate at the lane layer.
Citation-anchored brief with the trader-heavy lanes ranked, the implied margin leakage, and a recommended direct-manufacturer outreach list.
The top regulated lanes (IN to US, IN to BR, IN to CA, IN to ZA) all run above 95% manufacturer-direct. Trader-heavy lanes elsewhere are where margin gets captured outside the supplier-buyer dyad.
Lanes above 30% trader share and $10M total value are flagged as direct-source candidates. Cuts the trader's mark-up by going direct.
Each trader-heavy lane carries a recommended direct manufacturer to engage. Surfaced from the active exporter list with plant attribution.
Trader-dominated lanes often correlate with weaker regulatory oversight. The brief overlays compliance signals so the direct-source candidate carries a quality posture, not just a price posture.
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pharmagraph_query Twelve significant lanes ranked by 2024 trader share · scale is trader share as fraction of lane value · 0 to 1.
The trader-versus-manufacturer view is the margin-leakage signal. PharmaDB classifies every active exporter and aggregates trader and manufacturer shares per lane. Lanes above the trader-heavy threshold surface as direct-source negotiation candidates. The view is lane_trader_shares; the join is to molecule_country_flow for lane value.
Exporters with no attributable manufacturing plant in the catalog are treated as traders. Manufacturers carry plant attribution (FDA DMF, EDQM CEP, CDSCO licence) linked through v_api_doc_plants. The classification is deterministic at the entity layer.
Top regulated destinations (US, EU, Brazil, South Africa) require an active regulatory dossier referencing the manufacturing site, which forces direct-manufacturer shipments. Traders cannot route product into these destinations without the same dossier. The pattern shows in the data.
Lighter-regulation destinations (Cyprus offshore hubs, Central Asia, parts of Africa and the Caribbean) carry high trader share. The pattern is structural rather than evidence of malpractice; trader-heavy lanes serve markets without the regulatory infrastructure to require direct manufacturer dossiers.
Typical trader markups in pharmaceutical API routing sit in the 3 to 15% band, depending on lane length and destination market. The brief sizes the leakage band per lane based on lane value × estimated markup.
Yes. The recommended direct alternatives are filtered to active exporters with recent shipment volume, an active regulatory dossier for the destination, and an inspection-clean plant. The shortlist is qualified, not just possible.
Trade aggregates refresh weekly. Trader vs manufacturer classification refreshes on entity catalog updates. The catalog row carries the last-computed timestamp surfaced on every result page.
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