Takeda Pharmaceuticals hopes to ease its suffering with a little emerging markets medicine. Investors certainly hope the remedy works: The Japanese company reported a 28% drop in fiscal-year profits and forecasted a 40% drop in sales for the coming year, a bigger decline than analysts expected.
The culprit is Actos, Takeda's diabetes drug, which now faces generic rivals. Sales of the drug dropped by 24% for fiscal 2011, to $3.7 billion. That's about one-fifth of its net sales, PM Live points out.
But Takeda has a plan. Besides its pipeline hopefuls, the company will rely on emerging markets to help fuel growth. Presumably that means acquisitions, at least partly; Takeda already snapped up Switzerland's Nycomed, which has significant penetration in the developing economies of Eastern Europe and other emerging markets. The company also plans to launch Nycomed products via its own international sales and distribution networks.
Altogether, the company's blueprint for the next three years aims at boosting sales by $3 billion, to $21 billion. "Takeda will invest further in growth-driving emerging markets to expand sales and profits," the company said in a statement.
- get the release from Takeda
- read the PM Live story