After years of deal-driven global expansion, Asahi Kasei is rolling its pharma units up under a single brand and forging ahead with efforts to drive sales toward $2 billion by the end of the decade.
Tokyo-based Asahi has expanded globally through deals since 2020, when it put down roots in the U.S. by acquiring Veloxis Pharmaceuticals. In 2024, Asahi added Sweden’s Calliditas to its roster in a $1 billion deal. The conglomerate returned to the deal table in February, when it agreed to buy Germany’s Aicuris for about $920 million.
The acquired biotechs retained their own branding—until now. Going forward, the units will all operate as Asahi Kasei Therapeutics, the name of the company’s existing Japanese pharma business. Integration establishes a unified global management structure for the pharmaceutical business, Asahi said.
Bringing the units under a single global management structure “will allow us to make resource allocation decisions across the business rather than by company or geography,” Yoshikazu Aoki, global president of Asahi Kasei Therapeutics, said in a statement. Aoki added that the new structure provides “a stronger platform to pursue in-licensing opportunities.”
Asahi is seeking deals to expand its pipeline and support continued growth. The company plans to invest about 40 billion Japanese yen ($250 million) in in-licensing over the next three years. In-licensing and additional M&A form part of Asahi’s strategy for growing revenues to 300 billion Japanese yen ($1.9 billion) by its 2030 financial year.
The company focuses on specialty therapeutic areas, including immunology, nephrology, transplantation and infectious diseases. Asahi acquired the kidney transplant drug Envarsus XR in the Veloxis takeover. The company entered another kidney indication by acquiring Calliditas, which sells the immunoglobulin A nephropathy drug Tarpeyo.
Buying Aicuris moved Asahi into infectious disease drug development. Aicuris receives royalties on sales of Prevymis, a cytomegalovirus drug licensed by Merck & Co., and has a pipeline of programs targeting infectious diseases, including herpes simplex virus.