Yamanouchi Growth Strategy Is To Strengthen R&D

Masayoshi Onoda, president of Japanese pharmaceutical companyYamanouchi, believes health care reform is making competition in the country tougher, and says that his firm's top strategy is to strengthen its R&D ability to continually turn out creative new drugs that can gain recognition around the world. The aim is to become a top-class global drug developer by 2010, he told Dow Jones.

Government reforms aimed at reducing the percentage of health care money spent on drugs and increasing the amount patients pay for them will make doctors less willing to prescribe medicines of marginal value, he says. In the context of market competition, new drugs that offer little innovation or practicality will be forced to face price competition, he adds. Mr Onoda did not give a specific profit forecast. However, for the fiscal year ending March 1998, Yamanouchi has projected a net profit of 32 billion yen ($265 million) on 320 billion yen sales, reports Dow Jones.

The top Japanese pharmaceutical makers are considerably smaller than their global rivals, notes Dow Jones, and Japanese drugmakers have traditionally lagged behind their counterparts in European and the USA in innovation. Some critics have nicknamed Yamanouchi "manenouchi," or imitator, it was added.