IMS Company Profiles - Report Buyer

IMS COM PANY PRO FILES TAKEDA
antiangiogenic small mol e cule in phase III tri als in the USA, Eu rope and Ja pan in 2009, is planned by
2010. Pa tient en rol ment in the MONET1 trial of motesanib in the treat ment of nonsmall cell lung can cer
(NSCLC) was tem po rarily sus pended in No vem ber 2008 how ever, based on a higher early mor tal ity rate
with motesanib. The trial’s in de pend ent Data Mon i tor ing Com mit tee (DMC) rec om mended im me di ate
dis con tinu a tion of motesanib ther apy in pa tients with squamous NSCLC be cause of a higher than ex -
pected hemoptysis rate in these pa tients but not in pa tients with non-squamous NSCLC and in Feb ru ary
2009, the DMC recommended the resumption of enrollment of patients with non-squamous NCSLC.
Takeda says its ag gres sive al li ance pol icy aims at a wide range of tech nol o gies and prod ucts and the com -
pany has said it will ac quire any new tech nol ogy and prod uct nec es sary for the com pany to com pete on
the global mar ket with top man age ment in volved in all deals of any size. 2008 was a par tic u larly ac tive
year as the com pany worked to tackle its long-stand ing chal lenges, in clud ing es tab lish ing and strength -
en ing its pres ence in the global mar ket, en hanc ing its pres ence in on col ogy in ad di tion to sugar me tab o -
lism and car dio vas cu lar med i cine, as well as in creas ing pro duc tiv ity of R&D. In May 2008, Takeda en tered
a $1 bil lion li cens ing deal with Alynlam gain ing ac cess to its RNA in ter fer ence tech nol ogy in on col ogy and
met a bolic dis ease and be com ing Alnylam’s stra te gic part ner for RNAi ther a peu tics. Un der stand ing RNAi
en ables the ‘switch ing on/off’ of genes and gene si lenc ing, lead ing to the cre ation of a po ten tial new class
of RNAi ther a peu tics. Takeda is so far Ja pan’s only com pany working in this area and the deal was
selected as In Vivo Blog’s ‘deal of the year’ for 2008.
Takeda has been fill ing its on col ogy pipe line through li cens ing deals, in clud ing one in April 2008 with Cell
Genesys for the pros tate can cer immunotherapy GVAX, al though Takeda ter mi nated de vel op ment in De -
cem ber 2008 with all com mer cial rights to be re turned to Cell Genesys. As part of the li cense agree ment
with Amgen in Feb ru ary 2008, Takeda has ac quired rights to de velop and mar ket al most all of Amgen’s
pipe line (13 prod ucts), ex clud ing Amgen’s main prod ucts which have al ready been li censed to Kirin and
Daiichi Sankyo, in ad di tion to Amgen’s hu man re sources spe cial iz ing in the de vel op ment of
biopharmaceuticals. Takeda will pay up to $837 mil lion in upfront and de vel op ment mile stone pay ments.
The most ad vanced prod uct was Vectibix (panitumumab) for colorectal can cer, now ap proved and gen er -
at ing block buster sales. The only other prod uct at a late stage of de vel op ment is motesanib (AMG 706)
for can cer, and said to be one of the main driv ers of the deal for Takeda. Other prod ucts li censed in clude a
num ber for can cer: AMG 386, AMG 479 and AMG 655; as well as AMG 108 for rheu ma toid ar thri tis and
AMG 317 for asthma. The li censed prod ucts will strengthen Takeda’s pri or ity fields of can cer and uro log i -
cal dis eases (12 pro jects un der way in clud ing line extensions) as well as CNS and bone joint disease (11
projects underway).
Com pared to most Jap a nese com pa nies, Takeda was pre vi ously rel a tively un-re li ant on in-li cens ing for
its rev e nues. With three of Takeda’s four block bust ers go ing off-pat ent be tween 2009 and 2012
(lansoprazole in 2009, pioglitazone in 2011 and candesartan in 2012) how ever, Takeda plans to in vest
15% of its an nual R&D bud get to ob tain li cens ing can di dates from out side. Takeda in tends to li cense-in
prod ucts for hyperlipidemia, ath ero scle ro sis, can cer, schizo phre nia, de pres sion, and con sti pa tion-type
in flam ma tory bowel syn dromes.
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