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Chinese Buy for IMS Health
Pharmaceutical MR giant IMS Health, which last week announced positive second quarter results, is to acquire United Research China (URC) Shanghai, which offers OTC and Consumer Health survey services including syndicated research.
URC Shanghai was founded in 1998 and has operations in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou. The acquisition, whose financial terms were not disclosed, and which is subject to government approval, should give IMS detailed coverage of prescription and OTC activity in China, one of the fastest-growing pharmaceutical markets in the world.
According to Dr. Yehong Zhang, vice president, IMS Greater China, 'The combination of URC Shanghai's coverage and expertise in the retail pharmacy sector and IMS's strength in the Chinese hospital pharmaceutical space will lead to new and fully integrated views of pharmaceutical product performance'.
China represents a very significant proportion of the global OTC market and the two companies expect growth of up to 30% annually over the next five years, as the Chinese government moves to separate physician prescribing from pharmaceutical dispensing. 'With more than 150,000 retail pharmacies in China selling OTC products, it's important to note that these outlets also sell about 20 percent of the country's ethical drugs', according to URC Shanghai's General Manager, Major Zhou.
Market data from URC Shanghai will be added to OTCims, IMS Health's international OTC database. Earlier this year, IMS reached agreements with ACNielsen to license OTC data for the US and Japan.
Last week IMS Health announced results for the second quarter of 2004, with revenues of $379.6m, up 12% compared with the same period in 2003, and Earnings Per Share up 17%. The company's web site is at www.imshealth.com , while URC Shanghai's is at www.china-urc.com
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