October 8, 2014
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
Cancer biotech firm Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company is finally dropping the more awkward parts of its name to become simply Takeda Oncology, the company said this week.
Millennium currently markets cancer injectable Velcade (bortezomib) and has a growing clinical pipeline of product candidates. It focuses primarily on oncology and inflammation therapies.
Millennium was acquired by Japanese drug czar Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. in 2006 for $8.8 billion and was immediately saddled with the unwieldy name.
But in recent years press releases and company statements have omitted the Millennium portion—and now the company says it will simplify the name to simply Takeda Oncology.
Takeda Oncology spokesman Shawn Goodman confirmed the change to the Boston Business Journal on Wednesday. He added that a new logo reflecting the new moniker will be debuted soon.
Millennium was founded in 1993 and spent the early ‘90s building more than 20 strategic alliances with larger pharmaceutical and firms which gave it close to $2 billion of committed funding before its exit to Takeda.
