AstraZeneca purchases Sumitomo stake in Japanese unit

AstraZeneca has today (March 26th) announced it has purchased the remaining stake held by Sumitomo Chemical in its AstraZeneca KK Japanese unit.

The UK pharmaceutical giant has completed the ten billion yen (61.66 million pounds) deal in order to reinforce its operations in the country, which it sees as a key potential growth platform.

After the US, Japan is the world's second-largest pharmaceuticals market and is becoming more and more prominent for western drugmakers. 

It has previously proved difficult for these firms to establish a foothold in Japan, but the nation's regulators have recently moved to speed up their processes, making it more viable for organisations to bring their treatments to market in the country.

Earlier this week, AstraZeneca announced its Forxiga drug for type II diabetes has received approval from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which follows similar decisions in the US in January and Europe in November 2012.