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Japan's ageing and affluent population represents strong opportunities for foreign drugmakers. However, given its weak macroeconomic, there is a risk that the country will not be able to sustain its generous welfare for the people and will seek to save costs through the use of more generic drugs and price cuts. Nevertheless, the current profile broods well for generic drugmakers as well as companies focusing on eldercare and chronic disease management.
Headline Expenditure Projections
Pharmaceuticals: JPY10,157bn (US$127.4bn) in 2011 to JPY10,206bn (US$130.9bn) in 2012; +0.5% in local currency terms and +2.7% in US dollar terms. Our forecast is unchanged since Q312.
Healthcare: JPY47,810bn (US$599.60bn) in 2011 to JPY49,305bn (US$632bn) in 2012; +3.0% in local currency terms and +5.4% in US dollar terms. Our forecast has been revised upwards slightly from Q412 following reassessment of historic data.
Medical Devices : JPY2,220bn (US$27.8bn) in 2011 to JPY2,212bn (US$28.4n) in 2012; -0.5% in local currency terms and +1.9% in US dollar terms. Forecast slightly downgraded from Q412 due to reassessment of historic values.
Risk/Reward Rating: In Q113, Japan's score on BMI's Asia Pacific Pharmaceutical Risk/Reward Ratings maintains at 77.0 and continues to enjoy its status as the most attractive pharmaceutical market in the region. The country scores highly for all indicators in the proprietary model, including an ageing population, large pharmaceutical market, lack of corruption and extensive bureaucracy and will continue to be targeted by multinational drugmakers both innovative and generics.
Competitive Landscape
The competitive landscape section provides comparative company analyses and rankings by US$ sales and % share of total sales - for the total pharmaceutical sector, as well as the OTC, generics, and distribution sub-sectors.