Sep 29 (Japan Times) - Selling painkillers in Japan used to be like pulling teeth. That was until baby boomers discovered how analgesics could take the sting from arthritis, diabetic nerve damage and the ravages of cancer.
Now demand is taking off and drugmakers are introducing new products to a market where per-capita opioid consumption is the fourth-lowest in the developed world. Sales of drugs prescribed for chronic pain in Japan will jump 62 percent to ¥188 billion ($1.7 billion) in the seven years through 2024, Fuji Keizai Co., a Tokyo-based market research firm, said in a report in November.
Unlike the U.S., where President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency, Japan has had an aversion to narcotics because of restrictive laws and the stigma of addiction. But chronic-pain sufferers are demanding relief, and authorities are doing more to help them, especially since workers aren't economically productive when they are agonized by aches. A 2015 study estimated chronic pain costs Japan about ¥1.95 trillion annually.
"People suffering from pain these days are less tolerant of it compared with the older generation," said Tsutomu Suzuki, emeritus professor of addiction research at Hoshi University in Tokyo. "Some of the newer products are opioids, but they aren't categorized as narcotics, which makes people feel more relaxed about using them."
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe committed to improving chronic-pain treatment as part of his economic growth plan announced in June last year. That led the health ministry this year to fund specially designated clinics and hospitals focused on managing patients in chronic pain.
Shionogi & Co., which sells OxyContin in Japan, filed an application for the drug to be used for chronic pain in November following a request from a health ministry panel, and antidepressant Cymbalta was approved as a treatment for chronic back pain in March last year. The Osaka-based company bought rights to sell Methapain, or methadone, from Teikoku Seiyaku Co. in February and won approval for Symproic to treat opioid-induced constipation in March.
"Most doctors in Japan feel strongly about keeping opioid usage to a minimum because they believe patients may not be able to quit taking them once they have been on them long-term," said Masashi Katsumata, senior director of Shionogi's pain management business. "That's why the risk of abuse and addiction is much lower than in the U.S., and that's an ideal situation."
Daiichi Sankyo Co. began selling a generic version of OxyContin in March and won approval to sell the cancer painkillers Narurapid and Narusus in Japan in June following a government-funded program to support patients. Daiichi Sankyo, which also sells fentanyl, has a potential treatment for diabetic nerve damage, with its drug mirogabalin in late-stage patient studies, the Tokyo-based company said in July.
Pfizer Inc.'s Lyrica won approval as a treatment for pain after shingles and peripheral neuropathic, or nerve damage, pain in 2010. In 2012, regulators allowed it to be sold as a treatment for pain associated with a disorder called fibromyalgia, and as a treatment for neuropathic pain the following year. That helped it become the fifth-bestselling medicine in Japan in the year that ended in March, according to QuintilesIMS, a marketing research firm.
