Takeda hurt by generic Prevacid but profit up

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co has posted a major rise in earnings for the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 31 but sales of its major products all declined due in part to the strength of the yen compared with the dollar and euro.

Net income jumped 53.7% to 259.10 billion yen, as the like, year-earlier period. included costs related to its acquisition of the USA’s Millennium Pharmaceuticals and the conclusion of its TAP Pharmaceutical Products joint venture with Abbott Laboratories. Sales fell 6.2% to 1.203 trillion yen.

Aside of the currency effect, the decline was due to the loss of patent protection in the USA on the gastrointestinal drug Prevacid/Takepron (lansoprazole). Sales of the latter decreased 19.7% to 180.20 billion yen.

Takeda’s biggest earner, the diabetes drug Actos (pioglitazone), brought in 292.10 billion yen, down 1.9%, while sales of the blood pressure drug Blopress (candesartan cilexetil) were down 4.3% to 170.20 billion yen. Turnover from the prostate and breast cancer treatment Leuplin (leuprorelin) fell 5.1% to 92.80 billion yen.

Takeda added that sales increased in the USA for Velcade (bortezomib), for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma, while the newly-launched gout drug Uloric (febuxostat) and Kapidex (dexlansoprazole), a reformulated version of Prevacid, also contributed to growth but did not disclose by how much.

The Tokyo-headquartered firm also did not disclose its fiscal third-quarter figures but according to a calculation by Dow Jones Newswires, net income for the period fell to 69.52 billion yen compared to 96.79 billion yen in the like, year-earlier quarter.

Takeda left its earnings guidance unchanged for the full fiscal year of 280 billion yen in net income on sales of 1.480 trillion yen. However, analysts are most concerned about what will happen from the beginning of 2011 when the principal US patent on Actos expires.