New Takeda CEO Julie Kim inherits a firm with flatlining growth and generic competition eating away at its lead drug’s revenues. Will three major new launches over the next year and swingeing job cuts be enough to revive its fortunes?

Now one of just two female Big Pharma CEOs (along with Sanofi’s Belen Garijo), Korean-merican Kim is also just the second non-Japanese CEO in Takeda’s history. Kim was previously head of the firm’s operations in the US, which account for almost half of global revenues, and has also been credited with driving growth in Takeda’s plasma-derived therapies business. Upon taking the role in June, Kim acknowledged her predecessor Christophe Weber’s “deliberate and bold choices [that] delivered the global scale and innovative pipeline we are now building upon,” but is taking over a company bringing in fewer revenues than it was five years ago (see below chart).

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Perhaps the boldest choice in Weber’s reign was the decision to acquire Shire in 2019. A USD 62 billion deal that catapulted Takeda into the global pharma top 10, the Shire acquisition brought a major global biotech with a Boston R&D hub under Takeda’s wing. It gave the historic and previously Japan-centric company a sizeable US footprint for the first time and expanded its portfolio into rare diseases and plasma-derived therapies.

It has not, however, had the desired impact on Takeda’s bottom line; something Kim – who joined the company as part of the Shire deal – will be hoping to finally remedy. This is despite Shire-derived franchises – rare diseases and plasma-derived therapies – now anchoring more than half of Takeda’s “growth and launch” revenue, and debt from the deal being paid down ahead of schedule.

Vyvanse – Shire’s blockbuster ADHD drug – was one of Takeda’s top sellers until 2024, when its patent expired and generic competitors ate away at its market share, especially in the US. This has been the main stranglehold on Takeda’s growth ambitions over the past two years. In the last fiscal year alone, Vyvanse’s decline wiped out more revenue than the entire growth and launch portfolio managed to add. Neuroscience revenue fell 26.8 percent to about USD 2.8 billion, as Vyvanse sales alone dropped 42 percent to about USD 1.35 billion. Growth and launch products, meanwhile, grew 5.1 percent to about USD 15.4 billion, adding only around USD 740 million.

Kim is now looking to three major launches over the next 12 months – oveporexton, indicated for narcolepsy; rusfertide, for polycythemia vera (a rare blood disorder), and zasocitinib, for psoriasis – to supercharge Takeda’s recovery. There are already some positive signs that Takeda has the ability to transition away from its established bestsellers, with ‘growth and launch’ products – including Shire-legacy rare diseases and plasma-derived therapies but also internally developed gastrointestinal, oncology, and vaccines products – now accounting for over half of global revenues. Takeda has a further ten programmes in late-stage development.

Writing in the company’s latest annual report, an optimistic Kim calls the coming years “the next era of growth for Takeda, shifting from our maturing portfolio to a new cohort of blockbuster brands,” both through those three short-term launches (branded as ‘Horizon One’) and multiple waves of launches in the mid-to-long term (‘Horizon Two’).

This is being accompanied by a “transformation program” (a phrase guaranteed to strike fear in the hearts of low-performing middle managers) aimed at saving USD 1.26 billion in costs. The firm will cut 4,500 jobs this year — almost 10 percent of its 49,000-strong global workforce, and the largest single reduction in its history.

This follows hot on the heels of the second-largest reduction, the 2024-2025 “enterprise-wide efficiency program,” which cut over 4,000 positions.

“In January, as part of the final phase of the CEO transition, I established my leadership team and redesigned the organization to bring leadership and teams closer to patients and customers,” explains Kim. “I also introduced efforts to standardize ways of working and simplify processes to create further agility, and accelerate adoption of advanced technologies, especially AI.”

Whether 245-year-old Takeda can now finally deliver sustained growth and capitalise on its bold M&A strategy remains to be seen. However, under a more US-focused leader and with a streamlined management structure and revitalised pipeline in place, the signs are at least positive.

Photo Source: Takeda