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Hier ein interessanter Artikel von takeda, allerdings 4 Wochenalt. Ich rechne hier mit einer Kooperationsmeldung in den nächsten Monaten:
INTERVIEW: Takeda Seeks M&As To Support Antibody Drug Development
15 August 2006
Nikkei Report
Nihon Keizai Shimbun
TOKYO (Nikkei)--Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. (4502) enjoys fairly high profitability, but its efforts to introduce new products have not gone smoothly over the past few years. This has forced Japan's top-ranked drugmaker to actively try to acquire firms with expertise in antibody medicines and other treatments.
In a recent interview with The Nikkei Business Daily, Yasuchika Hasegawa, the company's president, spoke about how the firm will pursue research and development as well as about its merger and acquisition policy.
Excerpts from the interview follow.
Q: Takeda has released only two drugs in the U.S. over the past five or six years that the company developed itself. That's not very many, is it?
A: Our R&D division is trying to improve the rate of successful drug development by setting its priorities more carefully and overhauling the development process.
After fiscal 2011, we hope to introduce at least one new drug each year that was designed by our own research institute.
Q: How do you plan to bolster development technology for drugs to treat cancer and diseases of the central nervous system?
A:
We need to strengthen our antibody drug technology (in which we lag behind our competitors) that forms the core of R&D for cancer treatments. Although we have made some progress in detecting pathogenic organisms to be attacked by antibodies, we are trying to find ways to obtain from other firms the technology to develop medicines from antibodies.
We are carefully monitoring developments in R&D on DNA-based medicines and regenerative drugs so we can avoid repeating our mistake of delaying entry into the antibody medicine sector. If we become confident that these technologies are effective for drug development, we will consider the possibility of allying with or acquiring firms that possess them. Q: What is your view on M&As?
A: Although we are basically pursuing the principle of "Organic Growth" -- that true growth for a company excludes profits acquired from M&A deals -- we will consider buying other firms or technologies as "modules" to make up for the operations we are lacking.
Companies that possess promising new treatments for cancer and diseases of the central nervous system, or have the fundamental technology to develop such drugs are likely M&A candidates. However, we are not thinking about making a major acquisition worth several trillion yen.
The four things we expect from an M&A target are promising drugs, a strong corporate culture, a regional presence and good human resources. If the cost of a merger is reasonable, we will take the matter seriously.
But we have not been able to find a promising merger partner in Japan that meets those conditions.
We are ready to use 1.5 trillion yen in cash on hand for promising investments. We will return any excess funds to investors in the form of a share buyback and higher dividend payout ratio.
Q: What are the prospects for Takeda's U.S. operations, which account for slightly over half of the company's prescription drug sales?
A: Since it takes at least several years before a new drug starts to contribute to our earnings, estimates by some observers that sales at our U.S. subsidiary TPNA will roughly double in five years are overly optimistic.
Although sales of our mainstay Actos diabetes treatment are currently growing due to special factors like the reform of Japan's health care system, the medicine will unavoidably come under competitive pressure from new drugs slated to be introduced early next year by German drugmaker Merck KGaA and Swiss-based Novartis AG.
-- Interviewed by Nikkei staff writer Masakazu Sato
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