Pfizer's Viagra to Go on Sale in Japan Next Month (Update1)
Pfizer's Viagra to Go on Sale in Japan Next Month (Update1) (Adds sales forecast in 2nd paragraph.)
Tokyo, Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra impotence drug will go on sale in Japan next month, said Leslie Patterson, president and chief executive of the drug maker's Japanese subsidiary.
Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Inc. won't be releasing a Viagra sales target for Japan, though the Japanese company as a whole expects revenue to jump 86 percent to 268 billion yen ($2.2 billion) by November 2002, Patterson said.
Viagra became the world's fastest-growing prescription drug after its introduction last year in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere. The drug generated sales of $788 million between its debut the first week of April and Dec. 31.
The company said it hopes to find out next week whether Viagra will be covered by Japanese national health insurance. The health ministry is obliged to tell Pfizer by March 25th, within 60 days of the drug being approved, said Patterson.
Pfizer said it hasn't yet set the date next month when Viagra will go on sale in Japan. For the year started in December, the Japanese unit forecasts a 16 percent rise in sales to 167 billion yen.
Japan accounts for 20 percent of the world's annual drug sales. Asia is the Pfizer group's third-biggest revenue source, generating 13 percent of sales, after the U.S. and Europe.
Pfizer Pharmaceuticals contributed 18.2 billion yen net income to the group in the year to Nov. 30 1998, up 48 percent from a year earlier, on sales of 144 billion yen. It doesn't release profit forecasts.
The Japanese unit has 2.4 percent market share, which it expects to boost to 4.7 percent by 2002, to become Japan's second largest drugmaker. It's no. 13 now, and has 2,655 employees in Japan.
By the time it gets to No.2, Japan's No. 1 drugmaker will be ''either Sankyo or Takeda,'' Patterson said.
In the U.S. Viagra generated $411 million in the second quarter, its first three months on sale. It brought in $141 million in the third quarter and $236 million in the final quarter, of which $131 million was from sales in the U.S.
Japan was the 54th nation to approve the drug.
Shares in Pfizer yesterday fell 1 3/8 to 132 1/2 on U.S. markets.
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