Sales Growth At Yamanouchi Led By Gaster

In the financial year ended March 31, 1996, Yamanouchi of Japan achieved sales growth of 8.1% to 295.1 billion yen ($2.7 billion yen). Turnover of the firm's leading product Gaster (famotidine) was 63.8 billion yen, up 9.8%. The company expects demand for the product to remain strong and help offset government-mandated price cuts for other products. Overseas sales of Gaster were 9.2 billion yen for the year. Sales of Yamanouchi's alpha blocker Harnal (amsulosin) rose 45.4% to 22.1 billion yen. However, the firm expects Harnal revenues in the current fiscal year to drop sharply due to price cuts.

Sales of other products (in billion yen) were as follows: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Perdipine (nicardipine) 14.5 -6.4% Perpidine LA 10.6 -9.4 Perpidine overseas 1.5 -11.7 Hypoca (barnidipine) 4.6 +31.4 Insulin 20.5 +17.8 Frandol (isosorbide dinitrate) tablets 8.0 -3.6 tape 9.8 +11.4 Norditropin (hGH-r) 16.5 +10.0 Elen (indeloxazine) 14.7 -14.5 Optiray (ioversol) 11.7 -10.0 Dorner (beraprost) 10.6 +14.0 Euglucon (glibenclamide) 5.6 +7.7 josamycin 0.9 -18.2 josamycin overseas 4.3 +19.4 Maalox 4.7 +11.9 Intron A (interferon alfa) 2.7 -35.7 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yamanouchi launched two new products during the reporting period. Nasanyl (nafarelin acetate), a treatment for endometriosis, was launched in April 1995, and Serastar (indometacin), a transdermal anti-inflammatory launched in July 1995, which achieved sales of 2.3 billion yen and 1.5 billion yen respectively.

The firm's operating income grew 4.8% to 59.1 billion yen, ordinary income was 60.5 billion yen, ahead 4.4%, and net income grew 1.5% to 28.6 billion yen. Earnings per share were 88.34 yen, up 1.5%.