The Japanese pharma’s financial numbers showed a drop in operating revenue as it signed a $300 million license and collaboration agreement with Protagonist Therapeutics.
Pictured: Takeda office in Cambridge, Massachusetts/iStock, hapabapa
Takeda was hit with a drop in profit in the months of April to December of 2023, the Japanese pharma announced Thursday. The company reported 865.6 billion yen ($5.9 billion) in core operating profit for its third quarter of fiscal year 2023, marking a 9.3% drop from last year.
However, the pharma’s core revenue came in at over 3.2 trillion yen ($21.8 billion), marking a 4.6% increase from last year. According to Takeda, the drop in its operating profit change reflected generic competition, lower COVID-19 vaccine revenue and increased investment in R&D as well as data and technology.
As for Takeda’s third quarter, the company registered 105.7 billion yen in net profit a decrease of 11% from last year ($712.2 million). The revenue for the third quarter was 1.1 trillion yen ($7.4 trillion), a 1.3% increase from last year.
“In FY2023 Q3, we made further progress in our vision to discover and deliver life-transforming treatments, receiving two new U.S. FDA approvals and broadening the reach of our existing portfolio with multiple life-cycle management approvals for our growth & launch products,” Takeda CFO Costa Saroukos said in a statement.
Saroukos said that the company is on track to meeting its full-year management guidance. During the company’s half-year fiscal results in October 2023, after facing setbacks from two asset failures, it marked a drop in its net profit projections by 71% and took a 74 billion yen ($770.5 million) write-down.
The company expects revenue for its fiscal year 2023 to be 3.9 trillion yen ($26.6 billion).
Meanwhile, Takeda is still intent on accelerating the deal side of its business. On Wednesday, the pharma announced it would pay $300 million upfront to Protagonist Therapeutics to form a global license and collaboration agreement to develop and commercialize the company’s investigational hepcidin mimetic peptide rusfertide.
The drug is currently in a Phase III program to treat the blood disorder polycythemia vera (PV). In addition to the $300 million, Protagonist will also be eligible to receive development and milestone payments as well as royalties and commercial milestones of sales outside of the U.S. Protagonist will still be accountable for R&D through Phase III and the approval process in the U.S. Takeda will have the right to the drug for development and commercialization outside of the U.S.
“This transformational deal allows Protagonist to focus on completion of Phase III, while leveraging Takeda’s exceptional global commercialization capabilities to immediately commence pre-commercial activities with a first-in-class new chemical entity,” Protagonist CEO Dinesh Patel said in a statement.
Tyler Patchen is a staff writer at BioSpace. You can reach him at tyler.patchen@biospace.com. Follow him on LinkedIn.
