Status of Pharmaceutical Production In Japan

For 1995, the latest figures available, Japan's total pharmaceuticalproduction amounted to 6,168.1 billion yen ($50.71 billion), an increase of 7.3% on the previous year, according to the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association's Data Book.

Although growth of pharmaceutical production was dull in the 1990s, even minus 2.2% was recorded for 1994, the JPMA says that after an interval of six years a high growth of 5% or more was achieved in 1995. Over the past five years, however, the average annual growth has remained at around 2%.

Therapeutic Component Ratio With the aging population, weights on the drugs for cardiovascular, central nervous, digestive system, diabetes mellitus, etc have been increasingly enlarged, notes the JPMA. Production of cardiovasculars for 1995 for the first time exceeded the 1,000 billion yen level, and accounted for 19.1% of total drug production.