Tokyo

FOR decades, Japan's Sawai family was content to keep the drug business they founded focused on its home market. Now, they are steering the country's second-biggest maker of generic drugs through its first overseas acquisition in its 88-year history.

Sawai Pharmaceutical Co, which plans to complete its US$1 billion purchase of the generic drug business of Minnesota-based Upsher-Smith Laboratories Inc next month, forecasts sales growth at the US business to reach 13 per cent annually through 2021.