(Bloomberg): Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. President Christophe Weber said the company will continue to work to obtain pharmaceutical licenses from Chinese biotechnology companies, even as the United States tightens restrictions on Chinese companies for economic security reasons.

In an interview on the 24th, Weber said that while he was paying attention to geopolitical risks, “we should remain open to the possibility of partnerships with Chinese biotech companies.” Many of Takeda’s partners are American companies, but in recent years China has become “a fountainhead of technological innovation,” and they are interested in it.

The U.S.-China conflict, which has centered on advanced semiconductors, is beginning to spread to the pharmaceutical sector as well. In January, bipartisan members of the U.S. House and Senate introduced the BioSecure Act to block some Chinese companies from accessing government contracts.

It has been pointed out that if the law is enacted, it could have an impact on pharmaceutical companies that procure drug materials from Chinese companies. However, Takeda Pharmaceutical does not rely on Chinese companies to manufacture pharmaceuticals for overseas markets, so it explained that there would be “no major impact.” It also expressed concern that the impact of geopolitical tensions on the pharmaceutical industry could lead to the disadvantage of patients.

Weber expects the licensing acquisition to have an effect on increasing revenue. The cancer treatment drug that the company obtained a license from China’s HachiMed for development and commercialization outside of China has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as well as the European Commission. The company has signed a contract with Ascentage Pharma to acquire the rights to develop and commercialize a candidate leukemia treatment outside of China, Taiwan, and Russia. It is expected that the leukemia treatment candidate will be launched in about three years.

Six late-stage drugs

Regarding business performance, the company emphasized that it plans to “get back on track for growth” in the next fiscal year (ending March 2026). The expiration of the patent for the attention-deficit treatment drug “Vyvanse” had an impact, and core operating profit for the fiscal year ending March 2024 was down 11% from the previous fiscal year, but the impact will only last until the current fiscal year.

The company hopes to increase profits by commercializing six drug candidates in the late-stage development stages, including TAK-861, which targets patients with narcolepsy type 1 (NT1), and TAK-279, which is used to treat autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis.

Cost reductions will also be implemented. For example, it has been revealed that about 500 people will be cut at a base in Massachusetts, but the company said that the efforts to improve profit margins are complex, including organizational reform, procurement cost reductions, and operational efficiency improvements using artificial intelligence (AI), and that these will not be a one-shot effort but will be carried out over several years.

Weber, who had previously indicated he wanted to step down around 2025, said that was no longer on his mind, and that while choosing a successor was a major focus for the board, nothing had been decided yet and no timeline had been set for when the baton would be handed over.

–With reporting assistance from Isabel Reynolds.

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