Japan’s Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma says that its turnover for the first quarter of the fiscal 2007 fell nearly 20% to 65.3 billion yen ($569m), in part because of a fall-off in sales of its cardiovascular drug amlodipine, price cuts ordered by the Japanese government and the dissolution of a partnership with Abbott to market pharmaceuticals in Japan.
Net income fell 44% to 5.6 billion yen, which it attributed to the recording of extraordinary expenses worth 2.9 billion yen associated with early retirement payments.
Revenues from amlodipine, sold by Dainippon Sumitomo as Amlodin, fell nearly 5% to 14 billion yen, although the company has high hopes for a new formulation of the drug, which was approved in Japan in July this year. Meanwhile, the firm’s second-biggest drug, the gastrokinetic drug Gasmotin (mosapride citrate), contributed 4.5 million yen in sales, up 15%.
Prorenal (limaprost alfadex) for improving peripheral circulation rose 15% to 3.5 billion yen in the quarter, while antibiotic Meropen (meropenem) managed a 4% hike to 3.6 billion yen.
Dainippon Sumitomo said that it would not revise its forecast for the year as it anticipated that the negative impact of price cuts would continue to affect is performance. Meanwhile, the firm said it was expecting a good contribution going forward from antifungal Ambisome (liposomal amphotericin B), launched in Japan in June.
