Japanese drug-maker Takeda has entered an agreement with German pharma Stada to divest a portfolio of select over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription drugs for a total value of $660m.
The portfolio is comprised of products exclusive to Russia, Georgia and a number of additional countries from within the Commonwealth of Independent States.
It includes OTC vitamins and food supplements, and select products in the cardiovascular, diabetes, general medicine and respiratory therapeutic areas. According to Takeda, the portfolio’s growth is driven by sales of products including Cardiomagnyl and other ‘strong regional brands’.
In October, Takeda announced that it had agreed to divest a number of OTC and prescription medicines in emerging markets to Acino for $200m. These markets include Near East, Middle East and Africa (NEMEA) countries.
It said it plans to divest approximately 30 of its pharmaceutical assets to Acino – the Swiss pharma has a clear focus on selected markets in the Middle East, Africa, the CIS Region and Latin America.
The portfolio of products to be divested to Stada and Acino brought in approximately $300m in 2018, according to Takeda. The divestment to Stada is Takeda’s fourth such transaction over the past six months, and is part of its continuing plans to divest around $10bn in non-core assets to focus on its five key business areas and takeover of Irish biotech Shire.
“Takeda remains committed to the emerging markets, Russia and the countries included in this agreement. We will continue to increase patient access to our portfolio of highly innovative medicines across this region through our commercial activities and access to medicines programme,” said Ricardo Marek, president, growth & emerging markets business unit, Takeda.
“As we execute on our divestiture goals, we continue to work to ensure that each transaction aligns with Takeda’s values,” he added.
Takeda’s continued divestment of select assets aligns with the company’s efforts to focus on its chosen business areas. This includes gastroenterology, rare disease, plasma-derived therapies, oncology and neuroscience – the Japanese pharma said that these five therapy areas are core to its global long-term growth.
In addition to focusing on its key growth areas, Takeda is completing the divestments to accelerate its acquisition of Shire, which it announced in 2018.
At the time of the announcement, the decision to acquire the Irish biotech was met with some resistance, due to the massive amount of debt that Takeda would take on as a result of the merger.
As well as completing $10bn in divestment transactions, Takeda has made other sacrifices for the Shire acquisition, including the sale of its Osaka headquarters in July 2018.