Daewoong Pharmaceutical_대웅제약 has launched its generic antibiotic “Meropenem” in the United States, the company said Wednesday.

Meropenem is Daewoong's first product exported to the American market and the first Korean generic drug sold the world’s largest medicine market. It won the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2015 and will be sold there in earnest beginning this month, a Daewoong official said.

Meropenem is a generic drug of Merem developed by AstraZeneca, as a Carbapenem-series antibiotic widely used in hospitals to treat various ailments ranging from bacterial infections to general diseases.

It features low cross-resistance with other antibiotics, high efficacy thanks to high permeability of bacteria, and few side effects such as vomiting, as are the case of most antibiotics.

Daewoong expects the release of Meropenem to contribute to the stable supply of antibiotics in the U.S. Meropenem antibiotics market, where the products are out of stocks frequently. The U.S. Meropenem antibiotics market was estimated at $145 million in 2015.

"With the release of Meropenem, we expect to contribute to enhancing the the image of Korean pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. pharmaceutical market,” Daewoong Pharmaceutical Vice Chairman Lee Jong-wook said. “Daewoong will continue to advance into the global market, including advanced countries, and grow into a global healthcare group.”

According to Decision Resources Group (DRG), a U.S. market research firm that provides private data and solutions for the healthcare industry, hospitals have tended to use the stronger antibiotics of Carbapenem series more at the earlier stages of treatments than before.