Pay­ing down more debt, Take­da of­floads pre­scrip­tion drug port­fo­lio for $562 mil­lion

It’s been two years since Take­da’s $62 bil­lion Shire buy­out, and the Tokyo biotech is still re­struc­tur­ing.

The com­pa­ny struck a deal with Ger­many-based Chep­lapharm to di­vest some non-core pre­scrip­tion prod­ucts for an up­front pay­ment of $562 mil­lion. The port­fo­lio — which in­cludes car­dio­vas­cu­lar, meta­bol­ic and an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry drugs sold most­ly in Eu­rope and Cana­da — doesn’t fit in with Take­da’s post-Shire vi­sion. The biotech has since shift­ed its fo­cus to gas­troen­terol­o­gy (GI), rare dis­eases, plas­ma-de­rived ther­a­pies, on­col­o­gy and neu­ro­science.

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