Teva plans Japan expansion with Taiyo buy
pharmafile | May 17, 2011 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Taiyo, Teva, generics
Teva is to acquire a majority stake in Taiyo, Japan’s third largest generics company for $460 million in cash.
The deal gives Teva a 57% stake in the privately held company, and Teva aims to buy the remaining shares in the Japanese company.
Teva is already the world’s biggest generics company, and says the Taiyo acquisition will make it a leader in Japan.
The country is the world’s second biggest pharmaceutical market, but until now has had a low level of generic penetration, around 23%. The Japanese government now says it is aiming to increase this level to 30% by 2012, a move which Teva hopes to exploit.
“This acquisition will enable Teva to deliver on our strategic objective of becoming a leading player in the fast-growing Japanese generics market,” said Shlomo Yanai, Teva’s president and chief executive. “In fact, we now expect to reach our 2015 target of $1 billion in sales in Japan ahead of schedule.”
“Taiyo’s strong market reach, cutting-edge production facilities, and impressively large product portfolio, combined with Teva’s scale and capabilities as the world’s largest generics company, will enable us to offer a much wider range of high quality, affordable generics to a much larger segment of the Japanese market,” he added.
Taiyo earned sales of $530 million in 2010 and has one of the biggest generic product portfolios in the Japanese market with over 550 generic drugs in a variety of therapeutic areas and dosage forms.
Teva says the Japanese firm also has a particularly strong presence in the hospital market, thanks to a wide range of injectable products. Taiyo has two manufacturing facilities (including sterile manufacturing) and its own R&D team and local regulatory expertise.
Mr Yanai said: “We have great respect for Taiyo’s legacy and its experienced, talented, and dedicated team and look forward to welcoming them into the Teva family.”
The acquisition comes just days after Teva splashed out $6.8 billion to buy specialist pharma company Cephalon, which has patented products in CNS, oncology, respiratory and pain management.
Teva’s long term strategy is to continue its generics growth, while also diversifying into developing its own in-house R&D capabilities and marketing patent protected drugs. It says it aims to increase revenues from branded medicines from $4.6 billion in 2010 to over $9 billion in 2015.
Andrew McConaghie
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