In another sale to lighten its portfolio, Takeda Pharmaceuticals (OTCMKTS: TKPHF) has announced the divestiture of 18 prescription and over-the-counter brands. Celltrion (KRX:068270), a South Korean-based biotechnology company, purchased the assets for $278.3 million. The assets are distributed in a number of markets in the Asian-Pacific region, including South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia.
The assets from Takeda in the deal grossed a combined sale of approximately $140 million in 2018. The portfolio includes Nesina and Actos (both for diabetes), Edarbi (hypertension), and well-known OTC products. Nesina and Edarbi are protected through product patents until 2026 and 2027, respectively. Celltrion Pharm, a Celltrion affiliate company, will distribute the products in South Korea, and Celltrion Healthcare will distribute the products in the remaining territories.
In January 2019, Takeda outlined its goal to divest roughly $10 billion in non-core assets following its purchase of Shire plc in 2018 for $81.5 billion. By our count in our Deal Search Online database, Takeda has divested around $6.34 billion in assets, including the most recent sale.
Earlier this year in April, Orifarm Group A/S, a European pharmaceutical company, purchased a portfolio of a variety of OTC products and select prescription products in the respiratory, anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular, and endocrinology therapeutic areas for $575 million. The portfolio sold predominantly in Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Poland, Finland, Sweden, the Baltics, and Austria and generated 2018 net sales of approximately $230 million.
Prior to that in March, Takeda sold a portfolio of select non-core products exclusively in Latin America, including over-the-counter and prescription pharmaceutical products sold in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru to Brazil’s largest pharmaceutical company, Hypera S.A., for $825 million.
In May 2019, Takeda sold TachoSil® to Ethicon, part of Johnson & Johnson‘s (NYSE: JNJ) Medical Device division for $400 million. And then in July 21019, it sold its dry-eye drug, Xiidra®, to Novartis (NYSE: NVS) for $3.4 billion.
In October 2019, Takeda sold non-core assets to Acino for more than $200 million in countries spanning the Near East, Middle East, and Africa, and then sold a portfolio of non-core assets in Russia, Georgia and a number of Commonwealth of Independent States countries to STADA for $660 million in November 2019.
