Two of Japan's top drugmakers - Takeda and Astellas - expect profits decline as patent expiries bite

Reporting full fiscal-year to March 31, 2010, financial results, leading Japanese pharmaceutical companies Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Astellas Pharma have both forecast a downturn in profits for the coming year, as their businesses are hit be patent expiries on important drugs.

Takeda, Japan's largest drugmaker by sales, said it expects a 26% fall in net profit to 220 billion yen ($2.37 billion) for the current fiscal year ending March 2011, and a 4.5% decline in sales to 1.4 trillion yen. Meanwhile Astellas, which is fighting to gain control of US firm OSI Pharmaceuticals (The Pharma Letters passim), forecasts net profit to decline 13% to 107 billion yen and sales to drop 3.6% to 940 billion yen for the current fiscal year.

Takeda also revealed that it is to cut around 10% of its global workforce of 19 00, with over 1400 positions being eliminated in the USA.