Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. said Tuesday its profit declined in the business year ended March and it expects to book a net loss of ¥383 billion in the current year due to costs related to its buyout earlier this year of Irish drugmaker Shire PLC.
But Japan's largest drugmaker said its core operations continued to fare well, with such key products as ulcerative colitis and multiple myeloma treatments posting higher sales.
In the 2018 business year, Takeda's group net profit fell 41.6 percent to ¥109.13 billion. Without the effects of the takeover of Shire, the company said it saw a 67.4 percent rise in net profit.
Takeda and other major Japanese pharmaceutical companies have sought to improve their competitiveness in the global market through acquisitions of foreign firms. Takeda has aggressively bought European and U.S. drugmakers to expand its product lineup and development pipeline.
With the acquisition of Shire, Takeda projects its sales in the year to March 2020 will climb 57.4 percent to ¥3.30 trillion. If achieved it would be the first Japanese pharmaceutical company to record sales of over ¥3 trillion.
The net loss forecast for the current business year will mainly result from a write-down of Shire's inventories. Without the Shire-related costs, Takeda's sales and profit would likely be higher from the previous year, it said.
The ¥6.2 trillion takeover of Shire was completed in January, making it the biggest-ever Japanese acquisition of a foreign firm.