TOKYO -- Denki Kagaku Kogyo plans to earn 50% of group operating profit from its division that includes medical products by the year ending March 2018, a 13-percentage-point jump linked to a new diagnostic reagent's global release.
The Japanese company intends to increase profit from its life science and environment products division to 30 billion yen ($244 million) by fiscal 2017, 170% over forecasts for the period ending March 2016. Denka also aims to boost profit on sales from the division by 2 percentage points to 10%. Denka wants to cut its dependence on the plastics division, shielding the company from volatile raw materials costs.
Much of the growth is expected to come from overseas sales of a profitable cholesterol reagent set for wide release as early as next year. Denka sees the drug bringing in 10 billion yen in sales annually and hopes to take half of that from overseas, the U.S. and China in particular.
Denka's acquisition Thursday of a 51% share of German biomedical company Icon Genetics also should boost business in the division. Denka will use Icon's production technology to accelerate the development of vaccines, tests and other products and boost production efficiency across the board.
(Nikkei)
