Takeda is the largest Japanese pharmaceutical company with a history of more than 240 years, positively impacting the lives of patients across the world, including here in Italy. The company focuses its R&D efforts on oncology, rare genetics, hematology, neuroscience and gastroenterology (GI), creating a robust, modality-diverse pipeline.
At the pinnacle of the operations is Takeda Italia General Manager Annarita Egidi, who met with GMI POST to discuss Takeda's plans and its continuous growth in the country.
“Takeda grew with the rest of the world because we went through different acquisitions that expanded our geographical footprint,” Egidi told GMI POST, referring to Takeda’s buyout of Shire.
“This last acquisition brought the company to be one of the biggest in Italy. In fact, we are part of the 13 biggest companies operating in Italy. Together with the manufacturing site, we have more than 1,000 employees,” she said.
Takeda has been a very important player in Italy’s pharmaceutical market. “Our employees are distributed between the commercial organization and the manufacturing sites.”
“As for the manufacturing sites, there are two of the seven plasma-derived therapies. This means that the sites produce plasma-derived treatments from the plasma donated across the world. They collaborate with the regions that collect the plasma to produce drugs donated in Italy,” Egidi said.
Despite the recent hurdles the pandemic brought onto the world, Takeda has managed to push itself forward because of the company’s core values that are embedded in its daily lives: integrity, honesty, perseverance, and fairness. They have called these values “Takeda-ism.”
“It's something that we have become very used to,” Egidi said, explaining that when someone joins the company, they “are provided with training on the values and concepts so that each employee knows our philosophy.”
“You join us, you join our values to make sure that we work within the right framework. We make sure the values are put in place. Japanese values together with the Italian willingness to make things good makes a winning combination,” she said.
