Elder Pharmaceuticals plans to enter the Japanese pharma market during the current fiscal, as it has received accreditation from the Japanese Ministry of Health for its Patalganga facility.

“We have filed for new patents in these markets, so hopefully we should get these during the current financial year, which would open up another $500-million market for us,” Elder Pharmaceuticals Joint Managing Director, Mr Alok Saxena, said.

“The Japanese pharmaceutical market is valued at about $70 billion. Our plan is to actually try to get about 1 to 2 per cent of the market share,” he added.

The company’s plant at Patalganga manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).

“Elder is positioning itself to become a supplier of APIs and advanced intermediates to tap the vital Japanese market for the future growth of the company,” Mr Saxena said.

“We have also developed two products going off-patent in the Japanese market in 2014. One of the products is from the central nervous system (CNS) category and the second is from the gastrointestinal (GI) segment,” he added.

“Elder has already filed a PCT patent (an international patent application) for one of the advanced intermediates for the Japanese market and is in talks with Japanese generic companies for supply contracts,” Mr Saxena said.

Spending on generic drugs in Japan, the second-largest pharma market in the world, is on the rise and the government is targeting to increase the share of these low-cost alternatives to 30 per cent of overall healthcare spending by 2013, he added.

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