Takeda Pharmaceutical Co is to expand its footprint in the US oncology market with the US$4.66 billion purchase of Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc, adding one potential blockbuster in lung cancer and another already on-the-market therapy.
Takeda is to pay US$24 per share for Ariad, the companies said in a statement on Monday, 75 percent more than its Friday close of US$13.74. The deal would give it Ariad’s drug brigatinib, an experimental therapy being tested in lung cancer, and Iclusig, which is estimated to have brought in US$170.5 million last year.
The announcement came at the start of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, the year’s biggest gathering of healthcare investors and companies.
Takeda, based in Osaka, has been on a hunt for new drugs to replenish a flagging pipeline after patents have expired on some of its biggest products. As international drugmakers have spent billions on acquisitions in the last two years, Japanese drugmakers stayed largely on the sidelines.
However, they are now facing increased pressures at home, as the government attempts to lower the prices of many branded medicines and put a greater focus on generics to manage its healthcare spending.
In an interview, Takeda chief executive officer Christophe Weber said that “potentially” more deals could follow, although the company will remain disciplined.
Ariad has submitted brigatinib to regulators at the US Food and Drug Administration for review, with an expected decision by April 29. Meant to treat a form of non-small cell cancer, the therapy could have annual peak sales of more than US$1 billion, the company said.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company’s drug Iclusig treats a rare advanced form of the blood cancer leukemia and has been the subject of controversy for its pricing of the pill. In October last year, US Senator Bernie Sanders decried the company’s “greed” in setting the list price of the drug at almost US$200,000 per year.
“Whether the premium of over 70 percent for the acquisition is justified depends on synergies ahead,” Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities Co analysts wrote in a research note about the Ariad acquisition, pointing to strong competition from other top drugs in the cancer space.
Takeda said in the statement that the deal is expected to add to its earnings by its fiscal year ending March 2019.
Takeda has been looking abroad as domestic growth slows and turned its focus on three therapeutic areas — gastroenterology, oncology and the central nervous system.
The Ariad deal is complementary to Takeda’s strategy on oncology, which is part of its core with gastroenterology and the central nervous system, Weber said in the interview, adding that there are no plans to expand into other therapy areas for now.
In January last year, Ariad elevated a new chief executive officer, Paris Panayiotopoulos, amid pressure from activist investor Alex Denner.
The drugmaker then slashed 19 percent of the company’s workforce and undertook what it called a “strategic review.”
“We will look at all situations but we are very responsible about all prices,” Weber said about drug pricing.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last