Q66
Realigning the pharmaceutical industry Major reorganization is taking place in the Japanese pharmaceutical industry. In 2005, the third-largest pharmaceutical company, Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., merged with the seventh-largest, Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., to form a new company called Astel-las Pharma Inc. The second-largest company in the sector, Sankyo Co., Ltd., and the fourth largest, Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., merged to form Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd. This has created an era of three strong companies rather than just one-Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. as used to be the case. Although Takeda remains the market leader in Japan, what is its worldwide ranking?
(a) Fifth
(b) Fifteenth
(c) Twenty-fifth
A66
I In the international pharmaceutical industry, companies with medicinal drug sales of over 10 billion dollars are said to belong to the Ten Billion Dollar Pharmaceuticals Club. According to a survey by Dendrite Japan, a medical research company, in 2005 there were 13 companies in the Ten Billion Dollar Pharmaceuticals Club, eight of which were U.S. pharmaceutical companies and five European companies. There were no Japanese companies in this group. Takeda, with sales of 8.6 billion dollars, ranked fif-teenth worldwide. So the correct answer is (b). Astellas is ranked a realigning the pharmaceutical industry seventeenth and Daiichi Sankyo twentieth.
