Russia, China precede India for AstraZeneca's expansion plans

Drugmaker AstraZeneca plans to expand in Russia and China rather than India for advancing its emerging markets business because of their safer intellectual property protection and higher prices realisation.

According to chief executive David Brennan, who spoke to Reuters, the company was putting additional investment into Russia. He added the firm had made a commitment to China, and less so to India as it was a different kind of market, a lower priced market.

The Anglo-Swedish company expects emerging markets to make up at least 25 per cent of group sales by 2014, up from 16 per cent in 2010.

Under the company's strategy it will put up a new research centre in Russia's second city of St Petersburg, to compliment a $150 million manufacturing facility in the Kaluga region.

Brennan told Reuters that life expectancies in Russia were 15 years lesser than in a developed country, which made a big difference. He added that there was a lot of opportunity to improve access to healthcare and the government was committed to doing it.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has identified pharmaceutical industry as a key industry in plans to diversify the economy beyond oil and gas.