Internationalization By Japanese Drug Companies

In 1993, 41 Japanese-owned member companies of the Japan Pharmaceutical manufacturers Association (or 62% of the Association's Japanese members; it also has 22 foreign-affiliated members) operated a total of 245 pharmaceuticals operations bases overseas, says the JPMA 1994 yearbook. In 1991, when the last survey was conducted, 37 companies were operating 189 such bases.

Of the JPMA companies' total of 245 overseas bases, 91 or 37.1% were situated in Asia and Oceania, with 83 or 33.9% in western Europe and 64 (26.1%) in north America. Since 1989, when 25 JPMA companies operated 135 overseas bases, their investments abroad have been growing by an average of more than 10% a year, according to the report.

The amount invested by JPMA Japanese companies in North America has been growing steadily, although the percentage of total overseas investment has declined from 72.4% of the total in 1989 to 62.5% in 1992. In contrast, investments in western Europe rose from 19.1% of the total in 1989 to 28.4% in 1992. The share of the total taken by investments in Asia and Oceania has remained fairly constant, growing only slightly from 7.8% in 1989 to 8.5% in 1992.