Takeda reigns supreme among Japanese pharma companies

Barcelona, Spain-based business intelligence firm La Merie conducted an analysis to compare and rank Japanese pharmaceutical companies regarding sales, net income, R&D expenses and biologics sales in the fiscal year 2007, ended March 31, 2008.

The study revealed the supremacy of Takeda Pharmaceutical over fellow Japanese drug companies. Takeda not only posted record sales of $12.5 billion in 2007, but also received top net income in absolute figures ($3.3 billion) and as a percentage of sales (26.4%).

The Japanese pharmaceutical 2007 league is composed of four companies in the group with sales between $6.0 billion and $12.0 billion, three firms with turnover of $2.0 billion to $6.0 billion, eight with revenues of $1.0 billion to $2.0 billion. The remainder of more than 12 companies had 2007 pharmaceutical sales of less than $1.0 billion. The mean year-over-year growth rate was 3.2%, with only Kyowa Hakko posting a double-digit sales increase in 2007 over the previous year. Only nine of the analyzed Japanese drugmakers had a net income of more than 10% of pharmaceutical turnover, and the average R&D expenses of these companies were 15.7% of sales, notes La Merie.