Staying on course to transform lives

By Christophe Weber, Takeda’s President and CEO
September 9, 2021

I’m often asked about our company’s unique purpose and I never hesitate to respond with a very simple but profound statement. Our focus is on transforming lives. Everything we do at Takeda starts with a question of how can we do more for patients. This is evident in our science and innovation and embodied by the extraordinary people who come to work at Takeda every day in the hope of making a meaningful impact on the lives of patients. I’m proud of the progress we are making and feel privileged to be able to lead this exceptional company.

Driven by our values of Integrity, Fairness, Honesty and Perseverance, which we call Takeda-ism, our 240-year-old heritage has shaped our commitment to patients, people and the planet. Our values guide us to always do the right thing and are brought to life through actions based on Patient-Trust-Reputation-Business, always in that order. And, over the past seven years, our company has been on an extraordinary transformation journey, and our values have been our guidepost.

In 2014, we set out to strengthen our R&D pipeline while also expanding our size and scale to deliver our highly innovative medicines to patients around the world. As an R&D-driven company, an innovative pipeline is everything. This is evident in our reimagined pipeline, resulting in more than 40 new molecular entities (NMEs) – 90% of which didn’t exist as recently as 2015. Looking ahead, we have the potential to bring multiple transformational medicines to market by the end of FY2024 and I’m excited about the potential to bring these life-transforming medicines to patients.

In our work, we strive to address unique unmet needs by partnering with patients early on in the development process to make sure that we consider their perspectives. Additionally, our R&D engine with strong internal research capabilities and 200+ external partnerships across start-ups, biotech and academia help us bring innovative ideas to the table. Through these collaborations we’re able to advance best-in-class or first-in-class medicines for patients and lead the development of next-generation therapies on the cutting edge of science.

I’m excited by the path ahead and the positive impact we can make on patients and the communities we serve, as well as the planet. Getting to this point has been no small feat and our growth wouldn’t be possible without the talented and innovative people who make up Takeda. Investing in our employees to revolutionize the way we work with data and digital technologies, such as creating new jobs in specialized roles like data sciences, advanced analytics, cloud computing, software engineering and solutions-focused product teams, will also be essential for our future.

In thinking about our ambitious plans to bring better health to people and a brighter future to the world I recently sat down with Alan Murray, Fortune’s CEO, to talk what’s next for Takeda. You can learn more here* about our values-based and R&D-driven approach which has helped us grow into a leading biopharmaceutical company.

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