#16 Takeda

1-1, Doshomachi 4-chome Chuo-ku, Osaka 540-8645, Japan
Tel: (81) 66 204 2111
Fax: (81) 66 204 2880
www.takeda.com

Headcount	15,717
Year Established	1781
Pharma Revenues	$10,626	+8%
Total Revenues	$12,071	+8%
Net Income	$3,121	+9%
R&D Budget	$2,421	+46%

Top Selling Drugs
Drug	Indication	Sales	(+/-%)
Actos	diabetes	$3,479	+21%
Blopress	antihypertensive	$1,959	+11%
Prevacid	GERD	$1,306	+1%
Lupron	prostate cancer	$1,089	flat

Account for 74% of total pharma sales, up from 72% in 2006.

PROFILE

Takeda is the biggest of the Japanese companies on our Top 20 list, despite slipping back one spot this year. All four of the companies — Takeda, Eisai, Astellas and Daiichi Sankyo — are pursuing strategies to diversify out of the Japanese market, but Takeda’s appears to be the broadest.

In February 2008, Takeda signed a big licensing deal with Amgen, buying out their Japan-based JV and licensing as many as 13 compounds for the Japanese market, while also co-developing a drug worldwide. The JV was converted to Takeda Bio Development.

A month later, the company bought out its U.S. joint venture with Abbott, giving up Lupron, retaining Prevacid and some pipeline products, and most importantly, retaining the sales infrastructure.

Before the ink was dry on that deal, Takeda offered a staggering $8.8 billion to acquire Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Millennium posted record revenues of $528 million in 2007 on sales, royalties, and alliance milestones related to anti-cancer drug Velcade. (Ironically, Japanese rights to Velcade are owned by Janssen/J&J, not Millennium.)

Acquisition News Target: Millennium Pharmaceuticals Price: $8.8 billion Announced: April 2008 What they said: “Millennium greatly strengthens Takeda’s global oncology portfolio, led by the flagship product Velcade, and further enhances its pipeline with clinically differentiated, high-quality product candidates.” —Yasuchika Hasegawa, president, Takeda

Why all the big moves? Price cuts in Japan are forcing all of its major players to look at new models — Eisai recently bought MGI Pharma for $3.9 billion to build a cancer pipeline; while Daiichi Sankyo just ponied up $4.6 billion to jump into the generics field (and gain market share in India) by buying Dr. Reddy’s, and Astellas spent $380 million to buy Agensys and its antibody R&D expertise — but Takeda’s move is also driven by looming patent expirations (Prevacid in 2009 and Actos in 2011) and the hit that Actos took when it and Avandia were “black boxed” by the FDA last year.

To its credit, Takeda looks like its interest in Millennium is bigger than just Velcade. The company is actively wooing Millennium personnel to stay on, to retain the spirit of the company. Given the number of times we’ve seen companies bought and gutted for their pipelines, this is a refreshing change. (See AstraZeneca’s profile for more on this phenomenon.)

Still, that $8.8 billion bid was eye-popping. I can’t tell if it’s a sign of how foreign companies will be able to use the weak dollar to their advantage in M&As, or more of a sign about how desperate Takeda is to go global.

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For the full profile, including pipeline and patent information, download the PDF.