TOKYO (Reuters) -Takeda Pharmaceutical said on Thursday its CEO Christophe Weber will retire after 12 years in management at Japan’s biggest drugmaker.
Julie Kim, president of the company’s U.S. unit, was named to succeed Weber in June.
Weber spearheaded Takeda’s $59 billion takeover of Shire Plc in 2019, which expanded the company’s drug pipeline and global reach.
The announcement came as Takeda raised its full-year profit after quarterly results that trailed analyst estimates.
The company now expects operating profit to reach 344 billion yen from earlier guidance of 265 billion yen, citing strong product performance, operating efficiencies, and revised currency assumptions.
Operating profit in the three months through end-December stood at 66.9 billion yen ($432.56 million), the company said, versus 104.9 billion yen a year earlier and a consensus profit estimate of 78.1 billion yen in an LSEG survey of six analysts.
The company said in May it would re-organise to improve profitability and refocus on drug research and development.
Takeda has cut jobs or transferred staff at centres in the United States and in October announced an early retirement plan for some employees in Japan.
The company is trying to rebuild its drug pipeline after losing patent protection on major earners and to recover from clinical trial failures of treatments for lung cancer and Crohn’s disease that caused hefty impairment losses.
It has high hopes for its experimental narcolepsy treatment TAK-861 and a psoriasis drug candidate bought from U.S.-based Nimbus Therapeutics in late 2022 for as much as $6 billion.
Takeda gets more than half its revenue from the United States, which stands to be impacted by new import tariffs on pharmaceuticals pledged by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The company on Tuesday declined to comment on the ratio of its drug production in the U.S. or the potential effect of such tariffs.
Takeda’s shares have slid nearly 5% in the past 12 months, underperforming a 9.9% advance in the benchmark Nikkei.
($1 = 154.6600 yen)
(Reporting by Rocky Swift and Kentaro Okasaka; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
Comments