| China predicted to become world's second largest OTC medicine market in 2010 |
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| Friday,October 30,2009 Posted: 00:15 BJT(1615 GMT) |
| From:Chinaview Article type:Reproduced |
China will become the world's second largest market of non-prescriptive medicine, or "over the counter"(OTC) medicine in 2010, a senior executive with a European pharmaceutical giant said Saturday.
Olivier Charmeil, Sanofi-Aventis' senior vice president for pharmaceutical operations in Asia/Pacific and Japan predicted Saturday made the prediction here.
In 2008, the scale of OTC medicine market in China hit 70 billion yuan (about 10 billion U.S. dollars), with Vitamin and mineral products taking the lion's share.
Sanofi-Aventis China announced Saturday the decision of building a joint venture to focus on vitamin and mineral medicines with China's Minsheng Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd.
The move was a strategic one for Sanofi-Aventis to enter the Chinese OTC medicine market, said Charmeil.
The pharmaceutical giant will control the majority of the shares of the joint venture pending the signing of an agreement.
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