The government plans to give the nation's anemic pharmaceuticals industry a shot in the arm next year by boosting support by 80 percent so companies can better compete on a global scale, officials said Tuesday.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry will hike budget requests to 8.3 billion yen in fiscal 2007 to assist the beleaguered drugmakers, officials said.

Pharmaceutical companies here are lagging behind their U.S. and European peers in drug development, which tends to require huge amounts of time and investment.