Takeda Pharmaceutical to buy Millennium

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Japan’s largest drugmaker has agreed to buy U.S.-based Millennium Pharmaceuticals for $8.8 billion. The deal will buy Velcade for Takeda, which is an injectable drug primarily used as a second-line treatment for rare blood cancers after other therapies have failed.

The drug generated more than $800 million last year, compared with $3.4 billion for Actos, the company’s best- selling diabetes pill. Analysts believe that Velcade can bring in more than $1 billion in worldwide sales, in future.

Other promising cancer medicines and various drugs of Cambridge-based Millennium are still being tested on patients and may not be approved by regulators until after 2011.

Osaka-based Takeda is in need of new drugs and research capacity because its biggest seller, the diabetes drug Actos’ patent expires in 2011.

Takeda and Abbott Laboratories, only a month ago had declared plans to split up their decades-old drug-sales joint venture, TAP Pharmaceutical Products Inc. Post the split, North Chicago-based Abbott will gain U.S. rights to Lupron, a prostate cancer medication with $600 million in annual sales, and $1.5 billion in cash, while Takeda will get the overseas rights to Lupron and global rights to the $2 billion-a-year heartburn drug Prevacid.

Deborah Dunsire, Millennium's chief executive officer and a former leader of cancer research at Novartis AG, will take the lead at Takeda's global oncology development.

Millennium shareholders will receive $25 a share in cash, 53 percent more than the April 9 closing price before the deal was announced, revealed the two companies.

"This deal will boost Takeda's drug-development flow," said Mitsuo Ohmi, a Tokyo-based analyst at Japan Advisory LLC. "Millennium is a leader in genome medicine, with some promising drugs in early development."

Millennium rose 49 percent to $24.34 yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Takeda, which sank 33 per cent last year, dropped 110 yen, or 2 percent, to 5,300 yen today.