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For the first three quarters of the year, operating profit slid to 401.9 billion yen ($3.12 billion) from a year earlier when results were boosted by one-time gains on asset sales. Takeda’s annual operating profit forecast of 530 billion yen already lags a Refinitiv analysts’ consensus forecast of 593.9 billion yen.
The company said core operating profit, which strips out non-recurring items, increased 26% in the nine-month period.
European Union regulators in December approved Takeda’s vaccine for dengue fever, branded as QDENGA. The vaccine was earlier approved in Indonesia, while U.S. regulators are reviewing it on a priority basis.
Takeda expects the vaccine to generate $700 million to $1.6 billion in sales over the course of several years.
Also in December, the company agreed to buy an experimental psoriasis drug from U.S.-based Nimbus Therapeutics for as much as $6 billion, demonstrating its willingness to spend big to shore up its pipeline as mainstay products lose patent protection.
Until that deal, Takeda had been aggressively cutting debt and selling off non-core assets following its $59 billion takeover of Shire Plc (LON:SHP) in 2019.
“Our robust cash flow and strong financial position enabled us to make substantive progress in deleveraging even as we continued to invest for growth,” Takeda said in a statement, adding its net debt to core earnings ratio has improved to 2.5 times as of the end of the third quarter.
($1=128.6100 yen)
