Tanabe's 1st-qtr 2007 turnover hits 45.4B yen

Japanese drugmaker Tanabe says that its favorable results for the first quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2007 reflect the solid growth achieved by some of its core products in Japan, and a year-on-year decline in R&D expenses. The company's turnover increased 3.5% to 45.4 billion yen ($395.9 million), as did its operating income, which was 9.9 billion yen for the period, up 2.7% on the comparable quarter last year.

Drug sales overcome reimbursement cuts

Overall, revenues from pharmaceuticals reached 42.2 billion yen, including a 4.0% increase in turnover from prescription products, which contributed 40.9 billion yen, and 1.5 billion yen from over-the-counter product sales. Key pharmaceutical products included Remicade (infliximab), which contributed 4.6 billion yen and the spinocerebellar degeneration treatment Ceredist (taltirelin HCl) ,which achieved sales of 4.0 billion yen