NHI price cuts hit Bayer Yakuhin results

Bayer Yakuhin, the Japanese unit of German drug major Bayer HealthCare. saw its 2006 sales fall 3.4% to 89.0 billion yen ($738.7 million) on a National Health Insurance price basis due to the impact of a 3.4% average reduction of its drug prices in Japan.

By products, although turnover of Adalat (nifedipine), a treatment for hypertension and angina, Glucobay (acarbose), a diabetic agent, and Cipro (ciprofloxacin), for infectious diseases, decreased 3.8%, 0.7% and 4.8% to 39.4 billion yen, 13.9 billion yen and 5.8 billion yen, respectively, sales of Kogenate (recombinant factor VIII), for hemophilia, and Bayaspirin (aspirin), each increased 14.7% and 14.1% to 7.5 billion yen and 7.2 billion yen.

Jean-Luc Lowinski, who was appointed president of Bayer Yakuhin in January, said that Nihon Schering (the Japanese subsidiary of Schering AG which it has acquired) will be integrated into one entity under the name of Bayer Yakuhin on July 1, as scheduled. The new Bayer Yakuhin, combined sales of which reached 157.0 billion yen on an NHI drug price basis, ranked 18th in the Japanese ethical drug market. It will have 2,630 employees including 1,280 medical representatives. The company will focus on the fields of primary care (52.3% in total), diagnostic imaging agent (28.7%), thrombosis and hemostasis (6.9%), women's health care (2.3%), oncology (1.4%) and other expert therapy (8.3%).