DRUG maker GlaxoSmithKline plans to double revenue from India and China by 2015 as the company cuts medicine prices to catch up to Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis and Novartis in emerging markets. GlaxoSmithKline aimed to beat the industry's 12 percent to 14 percent growth in developing country sales, according to Abbas Hussain, the president for emerging markets at the London-based company. According to IMS Health, which tracks pharmaceutical sales, worldwide drug revenue will increase at least five percent a year through 2014. Hussain said the difference underscored the importance of winning business in emerging markets. He said there was a land grab going on right now because there was very little or no growth in the US and Europe. GlaxoSmithKline's sales in emerging economies have jumped 50 percent since 2007 to £3 billion (R32.6bn) last year. Hussain, hired in 2008, has been credited with increasing the sales force and snapping up smaller rivals. GlaxoSmithKline now had 13 000 sales representatives in emerging markets and would expand further, especially in China, Hussain said. The company has been slashing prices of products in emerging markets by as much as 70 percent. The company defines emerging markets as Latin America, Africa, the Middle East including Turkey, Russia and former Soviet states, India and China. Sales in those countries, excluding swine flu products, grew 17 percent last quarter. GlaxoSmithKline also has looked for growth through acquisitions. In December last year, the company bought Algerian drug maker Laboratoire Pharmaceutique Algerien for £26 million and paid £87m for NovaMin Technology of the US.

Trista Kelley: Bloomberg via Business Report, 18 May 2010