Health returns to the orient Eighty per cent of the world's medicine is consumed by people living in just 15 countries. With the exception of Japan, the second biggest drugs market and traditionally a lucrative hunting ground for pharmaceutical companies, the drugs industry has focused almost exclusively on the US and Europe.
Cancer is the most favoured area for pharmaceutical research and development.
The problem is simple - size. Even so, that makes it the fourth biggest developing market in the world after Brazil, China and Argentina. The Financial Times Limited 2000.