Dive Brief:
- Christophe Weber has been the president and COO of Takeda for three years. One of his major goals is offsetting losses from drugs that have gone off patent, including Actos (pioglitazone).
- Currently, he is overhauling top management, and it is in that context that Takeda's current US CEO, Doug Cole, has decided to "explore his options."
- Weber is in line to become the first non-Japanese CEO of Takeda and is on a mission to rebuild in the U.S.
Dive Insight:
It seems that a shake-up is in order as Takeda faces a series of challenges. When it teamed up with Orexigen to market Contrave (naltrexone/buproprion), there were numerous problems with the launch. In addition, there is a need to build out the business to help offset the loss of Actos revenues.
Actos, which represented 20% of Takeda's sales only a few years ago, has had rapidly declining revenues. In fact, in 2010, Actos grossed roughly $3.3 billion, while last year, Actos sales were $310 million.