A69 According to a survey by Dendrite Japan, in 2005, eight of the top 40 internationally bestselling drugs were developed by Japanese companies. Of the eight, the top seller was the anti-ulcer treatment Takepron, developed by Takeda. It recorded sales of 4.4 billion dollars and ranked seventh worldwide. The No. 1 drug was Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company's Lipitor, a treatment for high cholesterol, which had sales of 13 billion dollars. In 2000, Japanese pharmaceutical companies only had four drugs in the top 30. Japanese medicinal drugs are gradually penetrating international markets but the Japanese manufacturers are a long way from rivaling the major international pharmaceutical companies.

As Japanese pharmaceutical companies are not internationally competitive, the industry in Japan is running a trade deficit that cannot be reduced since imports cannot be cut.

The government is encouraging pharmaceutical companies to merge and the industry to reorganize, with a view to creating internationally competitive pharmaceutical companies capable of developing new drugs. To this end, the government is promoting the Pharmaceutical Industry Vision policy and is building a nationwide network to run new-drug clinical trials.