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路透社 2006年7月19日

Eli Lilly sees new drugs boosting China sales

By Jerker Hellstrom

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Eli Lilly & Co. aims to boost its market share in China as it launches a raft of new drugs that should triple its sales in the country by 2010, a company executive said on Wednesday.

The drugmaker estimates its China sales will rise over 20 percent this year, an acceleration from 16 percent in 2005 and exceeding the market's 16 to 17 percent growth, the president of the company's China operations said in an interview.

China's booming market for Western medicines will grow to $25 billion by 2010, virtually doubling from $13 billion last year, according to Boston Consulting Group.

"It's a great market which is full of opportunities, and that's why all the players are here," said Jorg Ostertag. "But we're growing faster than the market."

China accounted for roughly $110 million of Lilly's global revenues of $14.6 billion last year, and this is expected to climb to $300 million in five years' time.

The company, whose top-selling drug in China is the antibiotic Ceclor, will launch 11 drugs in the country over the next five years, including the insulin Byetta and anti-depressant Cymbalta.

The drugs will arrive late to the Chinese market due to long approval times, usually about two years. But Ostertag said the company was working hard to shorten the time needed to get new products to market.

Another challenge for drugmakers in China is sudden government-ordered price cuts, in a country where pharmaceutical subsidies are low.

"The healthcare system is lacking appropriate funding. The government roughly just pays one percent of its GDP (gross domestic product) for healthcare," Ostertag said.

In 2006, Beijing will focus its price-cutting efforts on drugs in the cancer treatment and antibiotics segments, the company expects.

DOMESTIC PLAYERS EXPAND

Global drugmakers in China only account for a third of the total market, and Ostertag said he expected multinationals to hold an even smaller portion as some of the country's 5,000 domestic drugmakers expand.

Eli Lilly, known for developing the Prozac anti-depressant, says it ranked number eleven among the major international drugmakers in China.

The company, which has so far invested over $100 million in China, aims to conduct 20 to 30 percent of its clinical trials in India and China in the next few years, partly to cut the cost of developing drugs.

The Indianapolis-based firm expects its Byetta and Humalog diabetes drugs to expand its share of the Chinese insulin market, and aims to control 45 percent of this market in the future, winning clients from Denmark's Novo Nordisk, which has a 76-percent share.

"We want to become market leader in diabetes in China -- I don't know if it will be in 2010 or 2012. Our goal is to increase our market share year by year," Ostertag said.