Takeda Splits Off a Range of Businesses to Focus on R&D
April 7, 2017
(Last Updated: April 7, 2017 at 12:35pm PT)
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
OSAKA, Japan – Takeda Pharmaceuticals is splitting off part of its business. This morning the company announced it is transferring a part of its Takeda Development Center Japan to a new subsidiary, which will be in partnership with United States-based PRA Health Sciences.
The new company will be called Takeda-PRA Development Center KK and is expected to be effective by June 1, 2017. Takeda’s business that will be transferred to the new company will provide clinical development operations and pharmacovigilance and other operational services for both development and marketed product portfolios of Takeda in close alignment with Takeda's TDC Japan, the company said in its statement.
Takeda said the split is an “absorption-type split” that is expected to allow the parent company to accelerate research and development by “refocusing on three key therapeutic areas: Oncology, Gastroenterology and Central Nervous System, as well as vaccines–key positions the company outlined last year. In July 2016, Takeda announced its decision to focus on those key areas. Takeda said the refocusing effort is critical to provide the company with the “necessary organizational and financial flexibility to drive innovation, enhance partnerships, and improve R&D productivity for long-term, sustainable growth.”
In its announcement, Takeda said the deal with PRA will drive innovation and will also better enable the company to enhance partnerships and “improve R&D productivity for long-term, sustainable growth.”
Takeda-PRA Development Center KK will start off with 910 million yen in assets, about $8.2 million and 450 million yen in capital. Half of the shares issued for the new company will belong to Pharm Research Associates, according to the announcement.
Takeda and PRA entered into a partnership in August 2016. In February of this year, the two companies expanded their partnership to include Japan. A joint venture between Takeda and PRA(UK) will “provide clinical development operations and pharmacovigilance and other operational services for both development and marketed product portfolios of Takeda in close alignment with Takeda's TDC Japan,” the company said.
Takeda said splitting off its assets into a new company will not change its financial forecast for 2016. The company is expected to make its 2017 financial forecasts at the end of May.
This is the second split Takeda has taken in recent months. In February the company transferred its Japan Consumer Healthcare Business Unit to its subsidiary, Takeda Consumer Healthcare Company Limited. The company said that decision would allow the company to “realize a more agile business model to promptly meet environmental changes and customers' needs in the consumer healthcare market.”
Although Takeda is spinning off some of its assets, the Japanese company has continued to flex its M&A muscle by making several strategic acquisitions, such as Bay Area’s Maverick Therapeutics and Ariad Pharmaceuticals .