Companies' report card

Takeda is the largest Japanese pharmaceutical manufacturer in terms of sales, and has been in the position by a considerable margin for some time. Other leading domestic producers include Astellas, Daiichi Sankyo, Chugai and Eisai. Over the past five years, the fastest growing pharmaceutical companies have been Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma, Ono, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, Shionogi and Otsuka. The leading foreign pharmaceutical companies in terms of sales in Japan are Pfizer, MSD, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Bayer, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca Roche and Novartis. A number of multinational companies are actively seeking to expand their operations in Japan, notably Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

According to IMS Health, nine foreign pharmaceutical companies figured among the top 20 pharma distributors, who sell products to wholesalers in Japan. Of these, foreign companies have witnessed good growth as GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, MSD and Sanofi Aventis registered a growth of 28.5 percent, 21.6 percent, 15 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Ono, a local firm, registered a double digit growth, while the rest recorded single digit growth in the market. Similarly, in the top 20 list of leading pharmaceutical companies that conduct sales promotions through medical representatives, Pfizer leads the table and is followed by Takeda, Daiichi Sankyo and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma. Even in this space, foreign players have witnessed double digit growth over the local players, except, Ono and Kyowa Hakko Kirin, which recorded a growth of 13.6 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively.