Thank you very much for your time today. First, I would like to explain the positioning of our healthcare business and how it fits into our medium-term plan. Please excuse my slightly hoarse voice as I have a cold. As for the initiatives outlined in the medium-term management plan, the first year of the two-year medium-term management plan, on the left-hand side, concentrated on improving profitability, and the objective is to achieve a final recovery and business portfolio transformation by 2024 to 2025. Our medium-term management plan, which we have been considering since 2023, is to return to our starting point. By starting point, we mean that we will carry out high-quality, stable production in a materials business as a manufacturing company.
In the healthcare business, we have started with the objective of returning to our starting point in terms of service to patients and providing very high-quality healthcare, especially home healthcare, which we started in 1980. In order to achieve our long-term goals, all of our management executives are aware that our resources are limited, so we have decided to identify underperforming businesses and less focused businesses and to review all of our businesses and implement such strategic options. We have already decided to implement the strategic option for Infocom and the composites business in North America. We think that we need to further strengthen our management base. Then, we are trying to restore the profitability of existing businesses and move on to the next midterm plan. Healthcare is one of our areas of great importance.
As for materials, we have almost finished setting up the winning strategies in the world of mobility and infrastructure and are now considering what specific strategies we should adopt. Today, I will be explaining healthcare. As for healthcare, I may have said this many times before, but I have been with Teijin for over 30 years, and even before that, Teijin started home healthcare and built up the top business space in Japan. We can go to maintenance hospitals anywhere in Japan, and of course, there are call centers everywhere in Japan, so we can make phone calls, and our nurses can also go to the area.
We have built a business utilizing such a business foundation with therapeutic oxygen concentrators, treatment of SAS, etc., so we know that our business foundation that can provide medical care in such homes, even with pharmaceuticals, can definitely be utilized with pharmaceuticals that require various types of support. I would like to be a company that brings it all together to solve issues for patients, families, and communities in need of greater support. I'm writing the outline of a growth strategy for healthcare, but of course, the external environment is becoming increasingly dominated by the trend towards reducing drug prices. However, as various newspapers have reported, there is a problem of drug loss and drug lag, so there is a movement to provide drugs for rare diseases to Japan as soon as possible.
As you are aware, we are entering an aging society, and I believe that it is everyone's wish to have medical care at home rather than in a hospital if at all possible. We have been operating our healthcare business in this environment, and although it seems like it has been several years since the last time we were in this business, we have seen a significant decrease in revenues due to the entry of generics into the pharma market. This means that the Japanese pharmaceutical business will inevitably reach a cliff, even if they are desperately trying to hold on to new drugs. We have been desperately trying to think of a business that would not be affected by this cliff and that would not generate long-term profits as stably as possible, and have decided to adopt a policy that leans more toward home healthcare.
To do this, we need a unique entity that integrates and operates pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and we have been struggling for several years with various healthcare issues to figure out how to operate in this integrated manner. Three perspectives are needed to achieve this, and again, a big cliff is something that we are trying to promote with our characteristics such that the entity does not cause too big a dent. To achieve this, it is essential to have a business structure that will bring long-term profits such as stable reimbursement for home healthcare. In order to provide home healthcare, we will use our own unique strengths as a pioneer in home healthcare, which no other company can do, and our nationwide network, which we have stretched across the country as our strength.
Among these, therapeutic oxygen concentrators and treatment of SAS are areas in which we are very strongly positioned. In addition to strengthening our profitability in these strong areas, we will also aim to bring our business on a growth trajectory by acquiring new products not only in the area of medical devices but also in the area of pharmaceuticals since we can utilize our business foundation in this area. We intend to grow over the medium to long term with this kind of strategy, and I would like to move on to the explanation by Mr. Taneda, General Manager of the business unit, later on in this presentation. Thank you.
Okay, I will now explain the growth strategy of our healthcare business, starting with an overview of our business, the framework of our growth strategy, and our new target markets.
First of all, I would like to introduce and outline our healthcare business. Teijin's healthcare business was launched in 1968 as an in-house venture in the two fields of pharmaceuticals and home healthcare, and we have taken on the challenge of commercializing it from scratch. In the pharmaceutical field, we are expanding by creating new drugs in niche areas where major companies do not enter. As a result, in 2011, we created Feburic, a drug for hyperuricemia and gout, which was eventually launched in 78 countries at its peak. We have been taking on such challenging things. On the other hand, in home healthcare, we created Japan's first membrane oxygen concentrator in 1982, and from that point on, we have been firmly engaged in business since 1985 when it became covered by insurance and have become a pioneer and leading company in Japan for so-called home oxygen therapy.
In 2000, we commercialized the SAS business in the area of sleep apnea syndrome, SAS, which we referred to later as sleep apnea syndrome, and grew it into a new pillar of our business. In this way, over the past 40 to 50 years, we have grown into a business with overall sales of JPY 150 billion . This is our current flagship product. In the area of pharmaceuticals, we have four drugs for diabetes treatment that were transferred from Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited in April 2021 as a business takeover. In terms of sales in the 2023 fiscal year, we have achieved annual sales of JPY 22.8 billion. We expect synergies with other products and services for this product, and specifically, we are currently pursuing synergies with sleep apnea internally. We also launched Ostabalo for osteoporosis with high-risk fracture in January 2023.
This is the first osteoporosis treatment in Japan to use a dedicated electric injection device. It is a product that uses such an excellent injection device that it can support self-administration by patients and management of administration records, etc. In home healthcare, as I mentioned earlier, we were the first pioneer in Japan to commercialize home oxygen therapy equipment, which we call HOT after the initial letters of home oxygen therapy. We have been strengthening our infrastructure, including a support system for patients to use the equipment with peace of mind and backup in the event of natural disasters. Furthermore, there are many potential patients for the treatment of sleep apnea syndrome, which is called continuous positive airway pressure, CPAP, and there is a monitoring system that utilizes mobile phones such as NemLink, and we believe that this also has the top domestic market share.
We have a full capability in the pharmaceutical business, including R&D, production, cleaning, sales, marketing, regulatory affairs, and quality assurance, and we can provide the same full support as other pharmaceutical companies. I think you already know this, and since there are not many opportunities to introduce home healthcare, I would like to focus on this area. As I mentioned earlier, the main target patients for HOT, which is currently the main product of home healthcare, are mainly late-stage elderly patients with chronic respiratory failure. In many cases, the use of these products is initiated upon hospitalization and then used at home. Regarding this HOT oxygen concentrator, we have our own oxygen concentrator that we developed. As you can see here, the bottom part of the picture with the skin color is a hand.
We have developed a wide range of oxygen concentrators, including the Hi-Sanso Portable α III, a compact and lightweight oxygen concentrator that fits on your hand. As for HOT patients, as shown here, the market is expanding at 1%-2% per year, according to the figures from the government statistics. CPAP, on the other hand, is for patients with sleep apnea syndrome, SAS, in the working and older generations. According to a paper, there are more than 9.4 million potential patients in Japan, and it's estimated that about one in seven people in their 30s to 60s suffer from this sleep apnea disorder.
Although the equipment itself is a purchased item and other companies use the same product, we are currently differentiating ourselves by our ability to propose inspection services leading up to the introduction of the equipment, as well as patient services and support systems after the equipment is introduced. The actual number of patients, which is also based on the government total, has been growing at 6%-8% per year, and as you can see here, there are currently about 700,000 patients. The business model of this home healthcare is a little different. As I'll explain in this diagram, basically, based on the instructions from the medical institution that is treating the patient, the medical institution gives instructions to Teijin to install the equipment, and based on these instructions, Teijin rents the equipment.
This is the business model we have been using since 1985 when the equipment became covered by insurance, as I mentioned earlier. In fact, medical equipment and machines themselves, as well as maintenance, inspection, 24-hour response, and emergency response, are provided based on such service contracts between patients and Teijin. The price on medical insurance is determined in the form of reimbursement, but the business model is that each of these providers determines the price of each machine after negotiating with medical institutions. On the other hand, since maintenance and inspections, 24-hour response, and emergency response are required, we provide this business with our own staff in a variety of positions, as shown here. Specifically, not only sales representatives who are in contact with medical institutions, but also those who are called home care providers who actually visit patients' homes to install the machines.
Then, there are the administration workers in the sales office who answer the phone and give such instructions, and call centers that respond to inquiries from patients. Clinical laboratory technicians, like the one who analyzes HOT data in CPAP, as mentioned earlier. In addition, nurses who can provide medical support. These are owned by the company, which currently covers the entire country with 10 branches and 86 sales offices. We operate under such a system. As I mentioned earlier, we provide oxygen concentrators and other medical equipment, and we have been sequentially creating and expanding the service business infrastructure needed to provide each of these devices, as shown here. As I mentioned earlier, we need a system that covers the entire country and a system to educate healthcare professionals.
In addition, it has a maintenance system, a system of medical services provided by a home nursing station and its own nurses, a call center that can respond 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and a safety confirmation system in the event of a disaster. Furthermore, recently, there have been remote management systems for medical devices and systems that link together multiple professions within the medical community with information. Furthermore, we have expanded our business space to include systems that support patient discharge from the hospital. In this midterm strategy, we intend to utilize these business foundations for pharmaceuticals to maximize the value of our products and strengthen our competitiveness. This is a bit of a change in tone, but I believe that we are doing a better job than other companies in this area of disaster response. Let me give you just a little introduction.
We have our own disaster response experience and a disaster response support map system, which we call D-MAP. Using this system, we worked with medical institutions in the affected areas immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake to confirm the safety of approximately 25,000 patients and deliver 17,000 oxygen cylinders. When information on earthquakes or evacuations is issued by the local government, it is automatically incorporated into the D-MAP system, which lists the locations of patients' homes in the areas listed on the D-MAP and automatically delivers the information to branches and sales offices in those areas. Once the patient's safety is confirmed by entering the information into the system here. This groundbreaking system also allows us to report the situation to medical institutions, and this information is then compiled and reported to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
We have shown a few of our past disaster relief activities here. We have responded to the Great Hanshin- Awaji Earthquake in 1995, the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, the major earthquake in Kumamoto in 2016, and the torrential rains in western Japan in 2018, I believe, as well as other earthquakes. More recently, we responded in the same way with the Noto Peninsula Earthquake that occurred on New Year's Day in 2024. As shown here, we were able to confirm the safety of approximately 94% of patients within 29 hours of the earthquake. In addition, this earthquake on the Noto Peninsula was the first time we had to deal with such a situation. Normally, we would have been able to transport oxygen cylinders and concentrators, but we were not able to do so.
Since the roads were cut off, we collaborated with the DMAT, Disaster Medical Assistance Team, to supply oxygen cylinders to areas that would normally be out of reach. Let me now move on to the framework of our growth strategy. I will not go into detail here, as Moriyama explained earlier. However, we are pursuing sustainable growth that does not cause major cliffs, and we are building a growth strategy that aims to strengthen medium to long-term profitability and achieve long-term growth while making good use of the business foundation we have cultivated as a pioneer in home healthcare.
As for the long-term vision and goals of the healthcare business, as we explained, we would like to contribute to the spread of treatments needed by patients, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices through support and service platforms for patients and their families, as well as stakeholders involved in medical care, including further promotion on home medical care. We would like to contribute to the spread of medical treatment using pharmaceuticals and medical devices, as well as the treatment the patients need through our service infrastructure. In our business, based on the long-term vision of Teijin Group's purpose, and also as a company that supports the society of the future as Teijin Group, as shown here, we are committed to resolve issues for patients, families, and communities in need of greater support by realizing the desired medical treatment in a familiar location through the provision of cure and care.
To achieve this, we are building a service infrastructure for stakeholders, strengthening the service infrastructure for patients, and providing home medical products such as pharmaceuticals and medical devices on top of this. The following is a description of the vision, actions to achieve it, and the future image. During the current midterm period of 2024 to 2025, we are promoting three main actions: product maximization, business structure transformation, and product acquisition. Furthermore, we continue to examine ways to grow our business in the future. The first is product maximization, which aims to maximize business profits from key products in order to generate current earnings and resources for future growth.
As for the second, business restructuring, as we have already announced, in addition to the current fixed cost reduction of JPY 5 billion , we will shift our product portfolio based on utilization of our service platform, which is one of our strengths, as I mentioned earlier. Furthermore, we are working to shift the demand structure in an attempt to establish a rare disease home care system by reorganizing our sales structure. Regarding the third, product acquisition, we are currently moving forward with the exploration and acquisition of healthcare products that are needed to support patients, which will lead to early and steady revenue generation. As a vision for the future, pharmaceuticals have so far focused on lifestyle-related diseases, but in the future, they will expand into the areas of rare diseases and intractable diseases.
In medical equipment, we will broaden the scope of our business in the respiratory and sleep fields while expanding the scope of our HOT and CPAP products. We are trying to grow by combining this product and service base while strengthening and expanding the business base, the patient base, and the stakeholder base. We are now in the process of considering and taking concrete measures to expand our business overseas in the future. In terms of the expansion of the provision activities undertaken by this healthcare business, until now, Teijin's home healthcare provision has been based on the rather narrow concept of providing medical equipment for home treatment. But from the current medium-term period, we are expanding this to include pharmaceuticals that require support at home, and we are also working to expand our provision to include home visits, and we are currently in the process of doing this.
In other words, Teijin's home healthcare in the future will not only involve medical equipment but also pharmaceuticals, and the meaning of home refers to the fact that the medical care that patients want will be realized in the place where they are used to living. For example, when it comes to home-use pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, things like improvements in the continuity of treatment and improvements in medical access will be possible through our foundation. Furthermore, in the case of the home visit model, our services will be provided in a way that complements the expertise of the visiting physician. In doing so, we intend to provide the medical care that patients desire. I would like to talk a little about rare diseases and intractable diseases, as I mentioned earlier.
As you can see here, the market for rare diseases and pharmaceuticals is projected to have high growth potential both domestically and internationally. Furthermore, it is estimated that there are 7,000 rare diseases themselves, and for 95% of these diseases, there is no treatment that can cure the so-called root of the disease. Furthermore, as you are probably aware, major pharmaceutical companies are also entering the field of rare and intractable diseases and focusing their efforts on this area, but in reality, major manufacturers are focusing their efforts on the fields of cancer and immunity, and there are still many unexplored areas in other fields, including the nervous system, endocrine system, and congenital metabolic abnormalities. It is said that about three-quarters of the areas are that kind of area.
In addition, as shown here, as an example of other companies' products in the case of rare diseases, the number of target patients may range from several dozen to several hundred. There are also many cases where additional points are set when calculating drug prices. And the other fact is that there are many products that are priced in the billions of yen range. Even though the sales of such individual products may be moderate, we believe that this is an area where growth can be expected thanks to the advantages we have outlined here. There is a push from the government for the development of drugs for rare diseases against the background of drug loss and drug lag, and it is not a tremendous industrial environment, and as a result, drug prices tend to be maintained over time.
In addition, there are many drugs for rare diseases that have been developed in new modalities, making it difficult for generics to enter the market. In addition, for rare diseases and intractable diseases, the first discovery of treatment and the start of treatment is usually at a university hospital or a large hospital. It is customary to start in such a circumstance, so it is possible to handle it with a small number of staff as the number of facilities is small. We believe that this is an area where there is still a lot of potential for growth. As I mentioned earlier, in the area of rare diseases, we are trying to introduce or develop drugs for fundamental treatment, but patients with rare diseases need various supports such as long-term prognosis and cooperation with medical care and nursing care in the continuation of medical treatment.
The current situation is that home healthcare workers and caregivers who support home healthcare also have issues and concerns about rare and intractable diseases. Here are a few examples. As for the concerns of patients and their families, as you can see here, the social welfare system is complicated, and they are not sure what kind of assistance they can receive. There is a lack of cooperation among medical and nursing care providers, and there are concerns about handling various medicines and medical equipment at home. We believe that our support for patients and medical personnel, which we have cultivated through our home medical services, can be utilized to address the concerns of medical personnel, such as not knowing how patients are doing at home or not being able to communicate the treatment methods of medical specialists.
We recognize that as our strength, and we recognize that the breadth and depth of support for both companies, patient-centered, is our strength, and the support and depth of support for patients and medical institutions is our capability. As you can see here, pharmaceutical companies that deal with medicines can provide support to the attending physicians and patients, and we believe we can provide support to medical care workers who support home medical care. Specifically, we have a home nursing station, and we would like to provide support for such a station. Furthermore, a system of multidisciplinary collaboration means building a network centered on the patient. There are also the foundations that we have cultivated through home medical care, and we are now working on the idea that we can utilize these foundations for pharmaceuticals as well.
In terms of specific examples, we are already in the process of verifying whether this infrastructure can be utilized for existing drugs. The first issue concerns rare diseases. For patients who have difficulty in getting a specialist doctor and a family doctor to work together or find it difficult to go to a distant specialist facility and wish to continue treatment at a local facility, we have a drug called Somatuline, which is used in the treatment of rare cancers, and through the information sharing system, VitalLink, which is a multidisciplinary information sharing system, we have already been able to utilize this drug as part of a medical care network by collaborating with specialty hospitals, university hospitals, and local hospitals.
As I mentioned earlier, for the issue of devices for administering medication at home, there is a follow-up service for patients via a dedicated call center for Ostabalo, a self-injection medication, as well as explanations of the devices at hospitals by sales office nurses. There is also an app for the product. Through this kind of thing, we are now able to respond to inquiries from patients and also to ask them how they are using the product. We believe that we will be able to utilize this information for the introduction and further development of rare disease drugs in the future. As I mentioned earlier, we introduced three drugs from Ascendis in Denmark in November last year because they require a little more work. This is a home self-injection formulation for diseases treated primarily in endocrinology and pediatrics.
We received a certain amount of praise for our patient medical support infrastructure during our negotiations with Ascendis, and we believe that we can clearly distinguish ourselves from our competitors by utilizing this infrastructure. Here are three outlines of the drugs. First, I will explain about PTH, a drug for hyperparathyroidism. There are about 1,000 patients in Japan with primary hyperparathyroidism. This is the only drug that can maintain the hormone concentration in patients with this condition, and it has already been approved in the U.S. and Europe and is currently being prepared for approval in Japan. Regarding this middle drug, it is a growth hormone deficiency, and there are about 20,000 pediatric patients and 10,000 adult patients in Japan.
In contrast to competing drugs that are administered daily, this is a motorized device that only needs to be used once a week, and it is already on the market in Europe and the United States. In Japan, it is currently undergoing phase III, the final stage of clinical trials. The third drug is for a slightly unusual condition called achondroplasia, which, as you can see here, causes growth failure in the limbs and breathing problems, and there are around 1,000 patients in Japan. Phase III trials are currently underway in the U.S. and Europe for a drug that can be administered once a week as opposed to the competing drug that is currently available, which is administered daily. As for this, Ascendis announced the results of the preceding trial in Europe and the U.S. in September, and preliminary results were released showing the primary endpoints were achieved.
So we are now preparing for a phase III trial in Japan, which we believe will be a tailwind for us. Regarding the acquisition of this product, we intend to continue our search for both pharmaceutical and medical devices for the future. Last year, we announced the establishment of a joint venture with JMS to develop a peritoneal dialysis business using the service platform from Ascendis, which includes drugs for rare diseases, as an example of this pharmaceutical and medical device business. We are in the process of starting a joint venture company in anticipation of the possibility of using a multi-professional collaboration system here as well, connecting specialty hospitals and clinics and even home nursing stations.
The content being restated here is aimed at realizing the kind of company I just described, and while we are working to maximize our products, transform our business structure, and acquire products in the current midterm, I was unable to talk about it today due to time constraints, but I think we will seek further growth through partnerships and M&A, and we are considering developing services and products in combination with each other while also keeping overseas expansion in mind. Finally, we have included a few of our pharmaceutical R&D pipeline for your reference. I won't go into details, but the product introduced from Ascendis, which I mentioned earlier, is being prepared for approval, as you can see here now.
In addition, there are a number of other products that have already been introduced from Merz in Germany, such as Xeomin, and are currently in phase III trials for the expansion of application in the area of rare and intractable diseases. This concludes my explanation.