Santen Pharmaceutical Co. (TSE:4536) will step up its prescription ophthalmic drug business in China, starting to handle sales on its own rather than outsourcing such work to an agency.

Santen, which now ships products to China from Japan, is carrying out test operations of Santen Pharmaceutical (China) Co.'s 7 billion yen Jiangsu Province factory, which is expected to come fully onstream as early as January 2009.

Local production itself is unlikely to generate huge cost savings, because hardly any human labor is required for the manufacture of ophthalmic drugs to begin with. But there will be no need for complex importation procedures, so locally made products are expected to have better price-competitiveness.

Santen's Chinese unit is currently engaged only in support activities, such as supplying information to medical institutions. But it will be responsible for sales beginning in 2009, coinciding with the start of local production. Santen representative offices in four Chinese cities will be used as sales bases.