Roche: influenza prevention is better than cure

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The changing face of generics

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Infertility: Serono and Organon, who's the daddy?

One in six couples in the developed world are estimated to be infertile. Europe is currently the major market for infertility treatment with approximately 250,000 cycles per year, due to public sector funding, but the US and Japan present massive latent market potential for the industry's key players, Serono and Organon, to squabble over.

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Japanese pharmaceutical companies: Survival through improved R&D

The Japanese market is the second largest pharmaceutical market globally, after the US. The market is therefore an attractive target for western companies' expansion plans. The building of strong in-house R&D capabilities will be central to Japanese Pharma companies' strategies for survival. However, improving R&D capabilities will not be achieved by increasing spending alone.

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Mycamine - bolstering the antifungal armory

Fujisawa's Mycamine is the second product in the novel class of the echinocandins to be approved for use in the US. Mycamine has witnessed rapid uptake in its first market, Japan, generating $106 million of sales in 2004. Indeed, the staggered geographic launch of the drug, made necessary by delays in gaining approval in the US and EU, may actually contribute to its future commercial success.

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Western invasion threatens Japanese pharma's survival

After the US, the Japanese market is the second largest pharmaceutical market in the world, with estimated sales of $54 billion in 2003. While the size of the Japanese market makes it an attractive target for western companies' expansion plans, domestic players are finding it increasingly difficult to survive.

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Novel combinations breathe new life into COPD market

There are 31.2 million COPD sufferers in the US, Europe and Japan - a prevalence rate of approximately 4.4% of the general population. Thus, the development of novel dual-action, once-daily inhaled therapies will provide important new treatment options for COPD and play a major role in the expansion of the market over the next decade.

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Cancer therapies: cytotoxics rise and fall

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Takeda: an East wind blows good for Blopress

Japanese regulators have approved Takeda's Blopress in chronic heart failure (CHF), proving Takeda's lifecycle management strategy for the drug successful. Furthermore, the approval makes Blopress the first angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) to be approved in CHF in all of the major pharmaceutical markets - Japan, the US and Europe - giving it a significant strategic advantage in this indication.

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Daiichi Sankyo: ACAT inhibitor is back in the bag

Daiichi Sankyo has halted clinical development of its heart drug candidate CS-505 following its poor performance in an atherosclerosis study. This will be a significant blow to the company as many industry spectators had predicted blockbuster status for the drug. However, the news will please Pfizer and Roche, which are both developing novel atherosclerosis treatments themselves.

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