Takeda Pharmaceutical Company and Baxter International (BAX) recently announced that Takeda will use technology from Baxter to manufacture influenza vaccine to immunize against the avian flu. Takeda will use Baxter’s cell culturing technology to manufacture the vaccine at a quicker rate than conventional procedures. Once clinical trials are completed, Takeda will start shipments in 2014. Takeda expects to mass produce the vaccine for over 40 million people. The company expects high demand for flu vaccine in Japan along with increasing sales in other Asian markets.
Takeda is investing 30 billion to 50 billion yen ($330 million to $550 million) for this project. The company is establishing a new testing unit at the Hikari plant in Yamaguchi Prefecture. It expects assistance of about 1 billion to 3 billion yen ($11 million to $33 million) from the Japanese Health Ministry in this regard.
Baxter’s strong growth of its BioScience division in the first quarter of fiscal 2010 was partly fueled by sales of the H1N1 pandemic vaccine. Vaccines remain a primary area of research and development focus for the company. In fiscal 2009, Baxter received marketing authorization from the European Commission for its CELVAPAN H1N1 pandemic vaccine using its Vero cell technology. This is the first cell culture-based, non adjuvanted, pandemic flu vaccine to receive marketing authorization in the European Union.
For fiscal 2010, Baxter expects net sales to grow between 7% and 9% year over year. Excluding foreign exchange impact, net sales growth is expected between 5% and 7%. Earnings per share should be in the range of $4.20 to $4.28. Cash flow from operations should be approximately $2.9 billion.
Takeda, the largest pharmaceutical company in Japan, is a research-based global pharmaceutical company.
We currently have an Underperform rating on Baxter.
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