Expenditures

Daiichi Sankyo is heavily investing in research and development and, thus, in the company's future. In 2010, the company's development budget was €1.72 billion. This represents 20.1 per cent of net sales. This is far above industry average of about 15 to 17 per cent. This emphasizes the importance of organic growth for the business strategy of Daiichi Sankyo.

In its research, the company focuses on thrombotic disorders, novel oncology and cardiovascular-metabolic therapies. Daiichi Sankyo aims to develop drugs that are either “Best-in-Class” or create a new class of therapeutic solutions. This ambitious goal has been achieved very often in the past, including the discovery of the first statin (drugs that lower cholesterol which were one of the most important class of drugs in the 1990s and first 10 years of the 21st century) in 1973 or the first Factor Xa Inhibitor (a new class of drugs that are expected to revolutionize the treatment of several disorders related to blood clots) in 1991. The present pipeline also contains several molecules that promise to be “First or Best in Class”.