Taking over SSP’s prescription business by corporate split (2004)

Two products are not enough to get in front of a doctor

What was lacking in the 2004 transfer was not the number of drugs but a reason for a sales representative to visit a doctor. After the narrowing that began in 1981, Hisamitsu’s prescription business had converged on Mohrus and Mohrus Tape; as of 2000 those two products accounted for ¥41.4 billion and 27.6% of the market for topical analgesic anti-inflammatories. Holding a quarter of the market, it could still offer orthopaedic surgeons and dermatologists nothing but patches, so the number of meetings themselves did not grow. There were two routes to a wider range — wait for approval of a new drug, or take over another company’s business whole — and Hisamitsu moved to the latter.

That said, the shelves that widened at a stroke were not filled with drugs Hisamitsu had made. The diclofenac products that transferred in April 2005 spanned oral tablets, gels, tapes and poultices, so that a company that had held only adhesive medicines now had the oral and topical forms of the same compound. The added items lay outside the transdermal therapeutic system — drugs the single-point focus held since 1981 cannot explain. A business SSP let go in order to concentrate on medicines and cosmetics is stacked, at Hisamitsu, outside the focus. It was a transaction in which the single phrase “selection and concentration” worked in opposite directions for the seller and the buyer.