Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) We have our first question from Cory Kasimov from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Mona Ashiya – JP Morgan
Hi, good afternoon. This is Mona for Cory. A couple of questions; last week when Bayer reported, you also reiterated Nexavar sales guidance and I was hoping actually that you could speak a little bit more about the key upside drivers, what you are relying on. You’ve spoken about some of them, but perhaps if you could rank order them, is it the EU, is it Japan other nations in Asia.
Dr. Tony Coles
Okay, Mona thanks. We are happy to address that. We are not going rank order them, because it’s still fairly early in the year and there are a lot of moving parts, but suffice to say we underscore and we reiterate our full year sales guidance and I’m going to ask Laura to fill that question.
Laura Brege
Thank you, Tony. So, as we look around the world, we expect first of all growth in each of the regions. So, liver cancer remains a largely untapped opportunity for Nexavar and so in each region as you go through Europe, United States, Asia-Pacific and markets where we are already approved, we expect to see growth from each place.
But as you pointed out, in addition in a market where we are expecting approval and launches including Japan, and as we look in the broader European meaning past the four countries we generally think about, from more perhaps with some of the Eastern European and around Mediterranean, we do in fact see growth opportunities in addition coming from each of those regions.
Japan, as I said in my prepared remarks with 40,000 cases per year, 2.5 times United Sates is absolutely an important driver, particularly in the later half of the year.
Mona Ashiya – JP Morgan
Okay, that’s helpful and then, last week Bayer also noted that about $35 million of Nexavar sales have derived from regions outside of the U.S. EU, Japan and Canada; presumably that was from Asia and I wonder if you could speak a little bit more about, is that largely patients who are paying out of pocket in regions such as China?
Dr. Tony Coles
So, the quick answer to that Mona is that in some of the Asia Pacific markets, because I take your question to be focused on Asia Pacific, in some of those markets, we are still awaiting reimbursement approval, China is a great example.
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