Japanese drugmaker Takeda surprised industry observers by posting better-than-expected results for the full year, ended March 31, on strong performances by its diabetes and hypertension therapies. But the group forecast minimal growth for the coming year.

Takeda booked net profit of 313.3 billion yen ($2.8 billion), up 13% from the year ago period, as robust sales buffered mounting R&D and marketing spend and special gains from the sale of certain businesses helped bolster the result.

Revenues climbed 7.9% to 1.2 billion yen, primarily on strong growth of the diabetes drug Actos (pioglitazone), jumping 26.3% to almost 243.8 billion yen, and the hypertension therapy Blopress (candesartan), rising 25.5% to 38.9 billion yen.

But the company said that recurring profit is likely to come in at around 486 billion yen for the full year, which would mark a rise of less than 1% from this year’s result, as a 21% higher investment in R&D and further drug price cuts in Japan eat into earnings.

Takeda also announced a new four-year management strategy that is designed to focus on achieving self-sustaining growth mainly from in-house products, and “further enhancement of R&D pipeline through collective efforts to a level where the company can expect sales of in-house ethical products of 2 trillion yen in fiscal 2015,” the group said in a statement.