Takeda to Acquire Millennium for $8.8 Billion

Osaka, Japan and Cambridge, MA (Apr. 10)-Takeda Pharmaceutical agreed to acquire Millennium Pharmaceuticals for $8.8 billion in cash or $25 per share.

Millennium's lead commercial product is "Velcade" (bortezomib), an anticancer drug. Millennium posted 2007 sales of $528 million.

"Millennium greatly strengthens Takeda's global oncology portfolio, led by the flagship product Velcade, and further enhances its pipeline with clinically differentiated, high-quality product candidates," said Yasuchika Hasegawa, president of Takeda Pharmaceutical, in a company release. 

Upon closing, Millennium will continue its operations in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and become a standalone business unit of Takeda. Millennium will be responsible for the global oncology strategy within Takeda, including the manufacturing control function in oncology.

Takeda has made several recent moves to expand its oncology portfolio. In March 2008, it formed an alliance with Cell Genesys (South San Francisco, CA) for the development and commercialization of "Gvax," an immunotherapy for prostate cancer. In February 2008, Takeda become Amgen's (Thousand Oaks, CA) worldwide partner for developing motesanib and also received exclusive and marketing rights in Japan for 12 programs in oncology. In 2007, Takeda formed a licensing agreement for  "Potelligent," a technology platform by BioWa (Princeton, NJ) for developing antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity-enhanced antibodies. Last November, Takeda also established a therapeutic-antibody research company, Takeda San Francisco, which is focused on the discovery and development of antibodies and antibody manufacturing.