Yoshitomi Products See Sales Growth

Japan's Yoshitomi reports that its mainstay drugs, including Risamol (cisapride), Depas (etizolam) and Kerlong (betaxol) showed strong sales gains for the year ended March 1996. However, it adds that National Health Insurance price cuts and rising personnel costs limited recurring profit growth. A further concern is that next April the NHI price list will be by generic names.

Sales for the year were 101.59 billion yen ($931.2 million), up 9.4%. Recurring profit increased 14.4% to 12.92 billion yen and net profit rose 17.0% to 5.20 billion yen. Earnings per share were 36.2 yen, compared with 31.0 yen the previous year. The company forecasts sales and net profit of 111.20 billion yen and 5.90 billion yen respectively, for the forthcoming financial year.

Meantime, reports Pharma Japan, Yoshitomi, which is making increasing efforts to sell other companies' products on commission, will start comarketing Shikichol (ursodeoxycholic acid) with Zensei.