October 21, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
On August 30, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, headquartered in Chuo-ku, Osaka, Japan, announced an early retirement program for its Japanese employees. A recent report indicates that 295 employees took the offer, and will retire effective November 30.
Eligible employees needed to be 45 years of age or older with a minimum of five years of continuous service. As part of the retirement inducement, a “special retirement benefit” was added to the normal retirement benefit. The company also offered re-employment support services to anyone interested.
The special benefits and service expenses totaled about 9.3 billion yen (about 89.5 million US), which the company is recording as a business structure improvement expense under extraordinary loss in the 2017 second-quarter fiscal report.
The company also revised its financial forecasts for the six-month period that ended September 30, 2016.
The company stated that, “Net sales remain firm, but are expected to register a slight decrease, as the yen has grown stronger than the previous forecast. SG&A expenses are expected to be lower than the forecast due to some delays in executing the budget and the yen’s appreciation. Non-operating income and expenses are estimated to deteriorate as a result of the recording of foreign exchange losses.”
The company’s previous forecast for six-months net sales was 199,000 million yen, and revised downward to 198,000 million yen. The company’s operating income, however, increased dramatically, from 16,000 million yen to 26,700 million yen.
Today it was also announced that Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts, had acquired Cynapsus Therapeutics. Along with the deal, Sunovion picked up Cynapsus’ APL-130277 (apomorphine) to treat OFF episodes associated with Parkinson’s disease.
“OFF episodes impair the ability to move and maintain normal activities and are often highly distressing to people with Parkinson’s disease,” said Nobuhiko Tamura, chairman and chief executive officer of Sunovion, in a statement. “We look forward to the completion of the clinical development program for the sublingual formulation of apomorphine, which, if approved, will be an important treatment option for OFF episodes associated with Parkinson’s disease. Sunovion’s acquisition of Cynapsus reinforces our vision to lead the way to a healthier world and our commitment to patients who are at the center of everything we do.”
Sunovion acquired Cynapsus Therapeutics through its wholly owned subsidiary, Sunovion CNS Development Canada. Synovion Pharmaceuticals, as mentioned earlier, is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo, as well as Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Europe, based in London, England, and Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Canada, based in Mississauga, Ontario, which are wholly-owned direct subsidiaries of Sunovion Pharmaceuticals.
Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma is in the top-ten listed pharmaceutical companies in Japan. It operates in Japan, the U.S., China and the European Union. Its focus is in the Psychiatry & Neurology arena, as well as Oncology. It was created in 2005 when Dainippon Pharmaceutical merged with Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals. It employs about 7,000 people worldwide.
