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(Recasts with growth outside home market; adds CEO comment;adds smaller rival)
JOHANNESBURG, Sept 14 (Reuters) - South Africa's AspenPharmacare Holdings will use its recent acquisitions ofGlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca product lines to move intoChina, the firm's chief executive said.
Aspen has been expanding rapidly outside South Africa, wherea heavily regulated pharmaceuticals market has put a cap ongrowth, and in its latest push announced this week said it wouldbuy GlaxoSmithKline's portfolio of anaesthetic drugs for$370 million.
Sales by the firm's South African unit were down 1 percentto 8.1 billion rand ($564 million), and would have fared worsehad it not been for a two thirds jump in exports.
Aspen, which earlier this month also concluded a deal totake AstraZeneca's anaesthetics brands outside the UnitedStates, has positioned itself to ramp up sales outside its homemarket, Chief Executive Stephen Saad said.
Aspen's European business alone is now bigger than its homemarket and the next target is China, he said.
"Worldwide our biggest sales force is now in China," hesaid, adding that the latest acquisition has boosted its salesrepresentatives in the world's second largest economy to morethan 600 people.
Previously the firm has had to rely on third partydistributors in China.
"We are now looking for economies of scale," said Saad,adding that the company was adding products, such as theanaesthetics, that fit in with its therapeutic platform.
Aspen said headline earnings per share (EPS) fell to 889cents in the year to end-June, compared with 1,149.9 cents ayear earlier.
Headline EPS is the main profit measure in South Africa andstrips out certain one-off items.
Shares in Aspen closed 1.2 percent firmer at 340.07 rand,recovering from a drop of 1.7 percent before its results.
Another South African drugmaker Ascendis, which hasalso acquired brands outside Africa's most advanced economy,reported a 39 percent rise in sales.
Ascendis Chief Executive Karsten Wellner told Reuters theacquisitions would boost Ascendis's sales mix from less than aquarter in foreign markets to about half by end of next year, asit moves to diversify away from the volatility of South Africa'srand currency.
($1 = 14.3175 rand) (Reporting by TJ Strydom; Editing by Louise Heavens and ElaineHardcastle)
