Daiichi Sankyo has posted healthy financials for the quarter ended June 30, but Japan’s largest drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co has seen its profits plunge.
Starting with Takeda, net income fell 43.1% to 64.11 billion yen, about $740 millon, while sales fell 6.4% to 354.70 billion yen. The decline was due to the strength of the yen and the loss of patent protection in the USA on the gastrointestinal drug Prevacid/Takepron (lansoprazole). Sales of the latter sank 44.6% to 38.70 billion yen.
Takeda’s biggest earner, the diabetes drug Actos (pioglitazone), brought in 99.50 billion yen, up 3.6%, while sales of the blood pressure drug Blopress (candesartan cilexetil) increased 1.6% to 56.50 billion yen. Turnover from the prostate and breast cancer treatment Leuplin (leuprorelin) fell 6.1% to 27.90 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. The newly-launched gout drug Uloric (febuxostat) and Dexilant/Kapidex (dexlansoprazole), a reformulated version of Prevacid, also contributed to growth.
For the fiscal year ending March 2011, Takeda is maintaining its forecast of a 26% decline in net profit to 220 billion yen and a 4.5% decrease in sales to 1.400 trillion yen.
As for Daiichi Sankyo, net income was 33.07 billion yen, compared with a loss of 6.44 billion yen for the like, year-earlier period, while sales climbed 12.9% to 256.43 billion yen.
The rises were due to the sales of the antihypertensive Olmetec (olmesartan), up 23% to 60.2 billion yen. Other products that contributed to growth were the anti-inflammatory analgesic Loxonin (loxoprofen) and the antihypertensive Rezaltas, which combines Olmetec with the calcium channel blocker azelnidipine), which was launched in April.
However the most significant contributions came from Ranbaxy Laboratories, the Indian drugmaker in which Daiichi Sankyo has a controlling stake. Sales there leapt 84.7% to 54.80 billion yen, driven by US sales from the antiviral valacyclovir.
For the full-year, net profit is expected to rise 7.5% to 45.00 billion yen, and a 2.9% sales increase to 980.00 billion yen.
