Since 1970 thejapanese pharmaceutical industry has grown 30-fold,1 mainly due to the favorable market created by japan's national health insurance, but also because of the independent research and development of innovative new drugs begun after the introduction of Western technologies from abroad. The industry's annual output totaled 5,059,500 million yen in 1988. Although the rate of growth slowed in the early 1990s, the annual output has surpassed 6 trillion yen (36.3 billion US. dollars) in the current period (see Table 1), making japan second only to the US. (with a 29.5% share of the market) in the output of pharmaceutical products. japan has an 18% share worldwide, surpassing Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Great Britain.2 In Part I of this article, which was published in the November/December 1997 issue of jMCp, (Volume 3, Number 6), we discussed the development of japanese health policy as it has influenced pharmaceutical consumption. Drug usage in japan relies on physicians' heavy prescribing habits and their dispensing role, the levels of government reimbursement, and the industry's dynamics within the larger japanese economy. Part II of this three-part series examines the overseas movement of the japanese pharmaceutical industry in its political/economic context, which is relevant to the managed care industry and the US. pharmaceutical industry. Part III of the series will appear in the july/August 1998 issue of ]MCP. It will describe major japanese pharmaceutical companies and their overseas activities. 3
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Nov 1, 1998
Debbie Tranter 
Open Access