Takeda Pharmaceutical Co said efforts to revamp its research operations will cost ¥75 billion (US$725 million) as it seeks to build a new pipeline of drugs and considers closing some R&D operations in the UK.
The Japanese company’s R&D activities will be concentrated in Japan and in the US, it said in a statement on Friday.
The number of “impacted positions” will fluctuate depending on the progress of implementing these programs and the transformation, Takeda said.
Christophe Weber, the Frenchman who last year became Takeda’s first foreign chief executive officer, has sought to streamline the operations of the 235-year-old drugmaker. Takeda plans to focus on the three therapeutic areas of oncology, gastroenterology and the central nervous system.
“We need to first build new capabilities and embrace new ways of working,” Andy Plump, Takeda’s chief medical and scientific officer, said in the statement.
Takeda on Friday reported first-quarter net income that tripled from a year earlier due to higher sales of gastrointestinal medicines. Operating income of ¥152.9 billion for the quarter ended last month topped the average estimate of ¥124.4 billion from four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
At a news conference, Plump said job cuts are expected as a result of the efforts to boost efficiency.
A third of the one-time cost of ¥75 billion has already been worked into the forecast for the current fiscal year and the rest is to be reflected in the next fiscal year.
The company will consult with employees on a “proposed” closure in Cambridge, England, it said in an investor presentation posted on its Web site.
The Cambridge withdrawal is nothing to do with Britain’s vote to leave the EU, Weber said at the news conference.
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