Millennium Losing Its Independence

Five years ago, when Takeda Pharmaceutical Company bought Millennium Pharmaceuticals for $8.8 billion, the Osaka-based Japanese powerhouse pledged to let the smaller company retain its independence.

In May, Takeda changed direction, fully integrating Millennium.

“We've reached critical mass as a global company where there is a need to align certain functions more globally,” says Anna Protopapas, MBA, Millennium's new president.

Protopapas, a 15-year Millennium veteran, says Takeda, like many other pharmaceutical companies, has lost the patent on a key blockbuster drug—the diabetes drug Actos (pioglitazone). At the same time, she notes, Takeda has a number of drugs in the late stages of development.

“We're trying to capture the efficiencies where it makes sense,” she explains, “so we can invest our dollars in the things that will make the most difference in the business and for patients—and that's our pipeline.”

Bruce Booth, DPhil, a partner at Atlas Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, says the integration was probably inevitable.

“I think it's just the nature of human organizations,” he comments. “As bureaucracy grows, it consumes things around it. Autonomy is hard to maintain inside a large company.”

He predicts the same integration will eventually happen to Genentech, now part of Roche.

The loss of independence at Millennium was probably well worth it for stockholders, he says, for the generous purchase price they received.

It also makes sense, he adds, for Takeda to want to bring Millennium's cancer expertise closer to the company's core. “Oncology is an incredibly important indication to Takeda, and they clearly want that integrated into the real core of the global business.”

Protopapas says the organizational and reporting changes will not at all undercut Takeda's commitment to oncology.

Takeda currently has 16 oncology programs in active clinical development, about half of which have drugs in late-stage development, according to Takeda's Phil Rowlands, PhD, vice president of Drug Development Management and Portfolio Management.

Although some workers may lose their jobs as Takeda eliminates redundancies, Protopapas says the company does not plan any wholesale layoffs and has just signed a new lease in Cambridge, MA, home to Millennium's former headquarters.

Millennium's longtime CEO and president, Deborah Dunsire, MD, left the company in early May, as the announcement of the integration was made public.

Protopapas expects others at Millennium will see the changes as positive, opening up advancement opportunities.

“I am an example of Takeda tapping into talent at Millennium for broader roles within Takeda,” she says, “and I'm not the only one.”