Korean drugmakers are moving to sell their potassium-competitive acid blocker (P-CAB) drugs on their own. As prescriptions for domestically developed P-CAB drugs grow rapidly, the companies are stepping away from the co-promotion deals they used to establish the products in the market, aiming instead to improve profitability through their own sales networks.
Daewoong Pharmaceutical (069620) ended its co-promotion contract with Chong Kun Dang for its P-CAB drug Fexuclue last month and switched to selling the drug on its own, industry sources said on the 14th. The move is seen as a strategy to raise profitability by directly selling a product that has already secured a certain level of revenue. Fexuclue posted sales of 98.2 billion won last year, down 3.7% from 102 billion won a year earlier.
Co-promotion is a marketing strategy in which a drug is sold jointly with another pharmaceutical company that has a large sales organization, allowing the developer to quickly win prescribing accounts and build revenue in the early stage after launch. Under such contracts, however, a portion of sales must be paid as a fee, meaning the original developer's fee burden grows as revenue increases.
HK inno.N's Kcab, a P-CAB drug for gastroesophageal reflux disease, also expanded quickly in the market through a co-promotion deal with Chong Kun Dang after its 2019 launch. HK inno.N switched its co-promotion partner from Chong Kun Dang to Boryung in 2023, lowering its fee burden under the new contract. The co-promotion contract between HK inno.N and Boryung for Kcab is set to expire at the end of this year. "With Kcab's annual sales approaching 200 billion won, there is a strong possibility that HK inno.N will sell the drug on its own after the contract ends at the end of this year," an industry official said. Kcab posted sales of 195.7 billion won last year, up 15.9% from a year earlier.
Korea's P-CAB market is growing rapidly each year. Outpatient prescriptions for domestically developed P-CAB drugs — including HK inno.N's Kcab, Daewoong Pharmaceutical's Fexuclue and Jeil Pharmaceutical's (271980) Jaqbo — rose 27.5% in a year to 356.2 billion won in 2025 from 279.4 billion won in 2024, according to pharmaceutical market researcher UBIST. Later entrants such as Jaqbo have begun moving into the market in earnest, while Takeda Pharmaceutical's Vocinti, the original P-CAB drug, is currently in drug pricing negotiations and preparing for a Korean launch.
For partner companies, the end of co-promotion deals creates the burden of filling revenue gaps left by major products. Boryung has moved to secure co-promotion contracts for Atozet, a combination treatment for dyslipidemia, and Nasonex, an allergic rhinitis treatment, in preparation for the possible expiry of the Kcab deal. Chong Kun Dang also expects a revenue gap of about 190 billion won a year, as both its Fexuclue co-promotion deal and its separate Atozet joint sales deal with Organon Korea have ended. Fexuclue and Atozet posted sales of 76.8 billion won and 109.8 billion won, respectively, last year alone. That is equivalent to 11% of Chong Kun Dang's total revenue.
