Kowa Soyaku vows to enter top 20 Jap firms

With the integration of Kowa's prescription pharmaceuticals business into Japanese medium-sized drugmaker Nikken Chemical, the new entity will restart as Kowa Soyaku, focusing on therapeutics in the field of lifestyle diseases (cardiovascular, diabetes and renal disorders), sensory organs (eye, skin and orthopedics) and specified areas (diseases of the central nervous system and gastrointestinal tract).

The move comes after Nikken Chemical became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kowa on August 1, 2006, and both firms agreed to consolidate their ethical drugs businesses into one entity.

The combined sales and profits of the merged companies are expected to reach 74.8 billion yen ($643.7 million) and 1.6 billion yen, respectively, in fiscal year 2007. Kowa Soyaku says it ultimately plans to to achieve sales of over 100.0 billion yen per year to rank among the top 20 largest pharmaceutical firms in Japan. The two companies have co-promoted the lipid-lowering agent Livalo (pitavastin) and the anti-hypertensive Olmetec (olmesartan).