Takeda Pharmaceutical Co has posted a healthy set of financials for the April-September period, but fellow Japanese company Daiichi Sankyo has seen its profits plunge.
Net income at Takeda, the country's biggest drugmaker, was up 17.9% to 75.58 billion yen (about $980 million), while sales inched up 0.7% to 357.22 billion yen. The firm's biggest earner, the diabetes drug Actos (pioglitazone), which has been hit by warnings from US and European regulators regarding an increased (though small) risk of bladder cancer, brought in 99.50 billion yen, down 6.5%.
Sales of the blood pressure drug Blopress (candesartan cilexetil) increased 3.7% to 56.50 billion yen. Turnover from the prostate and breast cancer treatment Leuplin (leuprorelin) climbed 7.9% to 27.90 billion yen.
Prevacid sinks in USA
The gastrointestinal drug Prevacid/Takepron (lansoprazole), which is suffering from patent loss in the USA, fell 17.0% to 38.70 billion yen, and US sales slumped 51.3% to 16.50 billion yen. However, sales increased 7% in the USA for Velcade (bortezomib), for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma, to 13.20 billion yen. The new gout drug Uloric (febuxostat), climbed 50.4% to 2.00 billion yen, while Dexilant/Kapidex (dexlansoprazole), a reformulated version of Prevacid, grew 44.1% to 3.40 billion yen.
Over at Daiichi Sankyo, Japan's third-biggest drugmaker, sales decreased 9.7% to 231.66 billion yen, while net income fell 23.5% to 25.31 billion yen.__The declines were principally due to a fall in revenues from Ranbaxy Laboratories, the Indian drugmaker in which Daiichi Sankyo has a controlling stake. Ranbaxy sales fell 27.5% to 39.80 billion yen as the year-ago period included a higher contribution from a generic version of GlaxoSmithKline's antiviral Valtrex (valacyclovir) in the USA.
On a positive note, the company noted steady growth for the antihypertensive Olmetec (olmesartan) and Memary (memantine), the newly-launched N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease,
