Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (TKPHF) announced today that it has entered into an agreement for joint venture with Pharm Research Associates (PRA - UK) Ltd., a subsidiary of PRA Health Sciences, Inc. (PRAH), aiming for transferring a part of Takeda Development Center Japan businesses to PRA effective June 1, 2017 upon which PRA will get half the shares of their new JV and its name will become Takeda-PRA Development Center KK.

Written by John Carroll (ENDpts.com)

The joint venture between Takeda and PRA(UK) will provide clinical development operations and pharmacovigilance and other operational services for both development and marketed product portfolios of Takeda in close alignment with Takeda’s TDC Japan. This partnership is expected to provide access to a more flexible operational capability to support development, as well as further globalizing Takeda’s development business in Japan building on Takeda’s capability in Japan and PRA’s capability in Asia Pacific.

Reorganizing their global research operations called for downsizing the UK and other sites while beefing up the US. R&D chief Andrew Plump has been completely rebooting Takeda’s R&D operations, and doesn’t show the slightest hesitation in making deep cuts to achieve the company's goals. At the beginning of the year, Takeda agreed to buy Ariad for $5.2 billion, then recently laid off about 180 Ariad staffers while retaining about 120. About 50 of the affected staffers at Ariad were also in line for jobs at PRA, which is continuing to soak up staff being cut by Takeda.