Japanese pharmaceutical giants eye China expansion

2009-01-09 Beijing

China, which has experienced double-digit average annual growth over the last few years, is expected to overtake Japan to become the world’s second largest consumer of pharmaceutical products this year. Given the weakness of pharmaceutical markets in Europe and the United States as a result of the financial turmoil, Japan’s pharmaceutical heavyweights are aggressively expanding into the Chinese market. Astellas, for example, expects to increase its sales in the country to 10 billion yen, or approximately US$108 million, in 2009 from 9 billion yen, or approximately US$97 million, last year.