As a global specialty health-care company, we are determined to continue to pursue further steady and solid growth, based on the foundation of the far-reaching achievements of our predecessors - creation of innovative drugs, development of new markets, establishment of unique new business models, and so on.
Synergies between the Pharmaceutical and Home Healthcare Businesses
Since the early stages of Teijin Pharma, our pharmaceutical and home health care businesses have been the two pillars of our growth. Teijin Pharma has focused on three therapeutic areas - bone and joint diseases, respiratory diseases and cardiovascular and metabolic diseases - and has played a leading role especially in the bone and joint disease area by providing high-quality pharmaceutical products. In addition, we developed new home medical care services, home oxygen therapy and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, a treatment for sleep apnea syndrome, and now hold the largest share in each domestic market.
We are now actively moving forward to achieve synergies between the pharmaceutical and home health care businesses in each therapeutic area. For example, our pharmaceutical and home health care representatives are closely cooperating with each other in the cardiovascular and metabolic disease (metabolic syndrome) area, with respect to a brand-new antihyperuricemic drug Feburic®, available in the market in 2011, and with respect to CPAP, to expand our markets in this area. In addition, we are going to leverage the global network of our home health care services we have build in the United States, Europe and Asia, as channels not only for sales of our pharmaceutical products but also for manufacture, in-licensing and R&D activities.
Teijin Pharma is a unique pharmaceutical company with solid business platforms for both pharmaceutical and home health care businesses. Our efforts to establish an organic link between both businesses are now bearing fruit also in creating effective synergies in our human resources and sales strategies, through integration of platforms for both businesses.
Solid Vision Beyond the Development Stage
In addition to the increasing synergies between the pharmaceutical and home health care businesses, new products in our lineup are also becoming strong driving forces in the growth of Teijin Pharma. In particular, Synvisc®, a treatment for knee osteoarthritis launched in 2010, and Feburic®, an antihyperuricemic drug already mentioned above, are products that have been long-awaited by medical experts and patients in each disease area. Feburic® is our first in-house pharmaceutical product in some time, and we are aiming to make it available in 60 countries in the world by 2015.
On the other hand, in the home health care business, we are endeavoring to develop a domestic market in the cardiovascular and metabolic disease area in addition to the respiratory disease area where we are now providing our services. We are also focusing on establishing a platform for high-quality home health care services in the United States and Europe as well as on facilitating use of home health care services in Asia.
Thus, our robust pipeline enables us to have a clear roadmap to the next stage of our growth up to around 2020. However, we are not satisfied with this prospect. With a solid vision for steady growth, we have a responsibility to continue to build upon the foundation for growth that our predecessors have already built. To this end, we will continue to strive to create innovative pharmaceuticals by facilitating joint research with domestic and overseas research institutions and partner companies as well as in-licensing of promising products.
Furthermore, in addition to the current pharmaceutical and home healthcare businesses, we are now working steadily on a plan to expand into other healthcare-related fields including rehabilitation aid and nursing care services. I strongly believe all these endeavors well represent the entrepreneurship passed on to us from our predecessors who started up the pharmaceutical business 25 years ago, taking advantage of Teijin’s intrapreneurship.
