Mitsubishi Tanabe cuts guidance on low income

Japan's Mitsubishi Tanabe posted reduced profit like-for-like in the first half of the fiscal year ending in March, 2009, due to 4.7 billion yen ($47.5 million) of pay-outs to employees who opted for early retirement.

Net profit fell 19.5% to 16.38 billion yen, in part because of the above exceptional costs, but also an 18% increase in R&D expenses to 37.62 billion yen, artificial sales increases caused by stock build-ups in the previous year and a drop in revenue.

Turnover dipped 0.7% to 206.34 billion yen, primarily consisting of pharmaceutical sales of 190.95 billion yen, which were down 1%. The firm says this was mainly due to National Health Insurance price revisions.