Celltrion completes acquisition of Takeda APAC products

18 Primary Care product assets for nine APAC markets

On Dec.

 

1, Celltrion announced it completed the acquisition for the Asia-Pacific market products from a multinational pharmaceutical company Takeda Pharmaceutical Company (“Takeda”).

 

In last June, the South Korean company signed a deal to take over the rights to Takeda’s 18 Primary Care product assets from the Asia-Pacific markets for a total of USD 278 million (approximately 307.4 billion won).

 

The company’s subsidiary in Singapore, ‘Celltrion APAC,’ has been in charge of the acquisition process.

 

With the completed acquisition, Celltrion APAC would be able to directly and indirectly practice rights over the 18 products available in nine markets including South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.

 

The list of the product assets ranges from prescription drugs like antidiabetes drug ‘Nesina’ and ‘Actos,’ antihypertensive drug ‘Edarbi,’ to OTC drugs like cold drug ‘Whituben’ and stomatitis drug ‘Albothyl.’ Considering Nesia and Ebarbi are protected by their substance patents until 2026 and 2027, respectively, Celltrion expects to see stable growth in sales for a while.

 

Celltrion Healthcare is to utilize its own sales network for the global market, while Celltrion Pharm is to lead the local sales in South Korea.

 

For the mean time, Celltrion plans to use the existing manufacturing facilities owned by Takeda under a manufacturing and supply deal with the multinational company to maintain the stable supply.

 

In the future, some of the drugs would be manufactured in Celltrion Pharm’s cGMP level manufacturing facility for local and global markets.

 

Celltrion says the acquisition has created a momentum for the company to leap as an integrated global biopharmaceutical firm by strengthening the chemical drug business on top of the company’s already competitive biopharmaceutical business.

 

Based on the R&D capacity and newly secured substance patent, the South Korean company plans to reinforce the incrementally modified drug (IMD) and insulin biosimilar line-ups in extended release and combination drug form, and also to complete the line-ups in antidiabetic and antihypertensive products.

 

Moreover, the headquarters have set a plan for the new subsidiary Celltrion APAC to gradually expand the businesses by seeking deals for contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) and contract research organization (CRO) and establishing biopharmaceutical cold chain in Asia-Pacific region.

 

A Celltrion official stated, “By successfully completing the acquisition process, the company has created a stepping stone to develop IMDs and to expand market share to penetrate the APAC markets.

 

Celltrion would also do its best to grow as an integrated global biopharmaceutical company by expanding the R&D and CDMO businesses in the APAC biopharmaceutical markets.”