Daiichi Sankyo Quietly Grows While Other Pharmaceutical Firms Downsize

PharmaManufacturing.com
10/03/2007

Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. has been steadily expanding its New Jersey facilities and rapidly increasing its staffing since 2002 to support a growing pipeline of medications for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, oncology and infection. Daiichi Sankyo is one of the few pharmaceutical companies experiencing steady and sustained growth in a market that has seen most of its larger competitors forced to downsize and consolidate operations.

Although not well known in the U. S., Daiichi Sankyo is heading toward mid-sized company status. “Over the next three years, we expect to achieve a 60 percent growth in sales,” president and chief executive officer Joseph P. Pieroni states. The company, which started its commercial operations in the U.S. about ten years ago, today revealed its plans for future growth and the impact it hopes to have in creating additional life sciences positions in New Jersey at a meeting with Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (N.J. - 11th District). The Congressman was visiting Daiichi Sankyo’s U.S. headquarters to personally meet with the management and employees to discuss health care programs and the future of health care and the industry in the state.

“We applaud Congressman Frelinghuysen’s conviction that all Americans should have access to affordable, high-quality health care,” said Pieroni. “We are also grateful for his tireless efforts to ensure drug access for all our senior citizens through the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill. In addition, he supported doubling the research budget for the National Institutes of Health. Hopefully, we can demonstrate our appreciation by continuing to do what we do best: bring innovative medicines to the American public.” Pieroni explained that he was proud of the company’s longstanding legacy of discovering leading cardiovascular and anti-infective products, but that, despite its presence in the U.S. for 46 years, most Americans do not recognize the company by name.

“That’s because in the past our Japanese parent companies traditionally licensed our products to larger companies to market,” explains Pieroni. “Sankyo discovered the statins, a lipid-lowering class of drugs which are now the mainstay of today’s cholesterol reduction. Sankyo discovered the first statin, mevastatin, and co-discovered lovastatin with Merck, the first statin to be marketed. We also developed pravastatin sodium which we licensed to Bristol-Myers Squibb. Daiichi discovered levofloxacin, an antibiotic for bacterial infections, which is marketed in the U.S. by Johnson & Johnson. Because these innovative and blockbuster products were out-licensed to large U.S. companies, Daiichi Sankyo is not exactly a household name in the U.S.”

Sankyo and Daiichi merged in the U.S. in 2006 to form Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. and established its headquarters in Parsippany, N.J. From 2002 to 2007, the company’s headquarters staff in Parsippany nearly doubled, its Edison, N.J.-based global Clinical Development staff more than doubled, and its national sales force grew by more than two and one-half times.

Daiichi Sankyo currently employs about 600 people in the state, including 300 at its Parsippany headquarters and 220 at the company’s Clinical Development offices in Edison. Nationally, the company employs more than 2,000 people, with about 30 percent of its work force based in New Jersey.

The company develops and markets drugs in five therapeutic areas: cardiovascular, metabolic disease, oncology, immunology and anti-infectives.

The company expects that three anticipated product launches will continue to fuel its double-digit growth within the next two years. On September 26, 2007, the Food and Drug Administration approved the company’s new anti-hypertensive drug, AZORTM (amlodipine and olmesartan medoxomil), a fixed-dose combination of the calcium channel blocker (CCB) amlodipine and the angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) olmesartan medoxomil, or BENICAR®. In the next several months, the company expects to launch a type 2 diabetes indication for its lipid-lowering drug, Welchol® (colesevalam hydrochloride). With FDA approval, Welchol will be the first LDL-lowering medication also indicated for improving glycemic control. And within two years, Daiichi Sankyo and its co-promotion partner Eli Lilly and Company hope to bring the anti-platelet agent prasugrel to market for patients with acute coronary syndrome.

Globally, Daiichi Sankyo currently ranks as one of the top twenty pharmaceutical companies, with sales last year exceeding $8 billion. As a company in existence for more than 100 years, Daiichi Sankyo is very well known in Japan—it is the country’s second largest drug maker, ranking ahead of Astellas Pharma Inc. and Eisai Inc. whose sales are $7.5 and $4.6 billion, respectively.

“The legacy of Daiichi and Sankyo is more than a century of pharmaceutical experience in bringing important medical discoveries to market,” Pieroni said. “We are continuing this tradition of solid R&D innovation and are confident that our company is well positioned as an emerging leader in cardiovascular care to excel in the challenging U.S. pharmaceutical marketplace—and in bringing more life sciences jobs to New Jersey.” Daiichi Sankyo, Co., Ltd., (TSE: 4568), the U.S. organization’s parent company, is traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

About Daiichi Sankyo, Inc.

Daiichi Sankyo, Inc., (pronounced DIE – EECH -EE SANK- EE - O) headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, is the U.S. subsidiary of Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd., Japan’s second largest pharmaceutical company and a global leader in pharmaceutical innovation since 1899. The company is dedicated to the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative medicines that improve the lives of patients throughout the world.

The primary focus of Daiichi Sankyo’s research and development is cardiovascular disease, including therapies for dyslipidemia, hypertension, diabetes, and acute coronary syndrome. The company is also pursuing the discovery of new medicines in the areas of glucose metabolic disorders, infectious diseases, cancer, bone and joint diseases, and immune disorders.

For more information, visit www.dsus.com.