Twenty-three years since it entered the market, Japan-based pharmaceutical company Takeda has become one of the largest Japanese companies in Ireland following the acquisition of Irish pharmaceutical company Shire in 2019. Today, it operates two large manufacturing plants and has several commercial offices across the country.
“Looking back, the integration of two large organizations was a major project and it was executed really well. If you ask our employees now how much they feel like they belong in Takeda, irrespective of which legacy entity they came from, you’d find that they feel the same sense of belonging in the new organization,” Takeda Ireland General Manager Shane Ryan said.
The merger boosted the size of Takeda’s workforce and allowed it to establish a presence in new therapeutic areas in Ireland. In that same year, Takeda opened its first end-to-end manufacturing facility, a €70 million investment to manufacture one of Takeda’s novel cancer treatments. It is also building a new facility for an innovative cell therapy, which will be first of its kind in Europe.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Takeda is seen as one of the largest contributors to the Irish health care ecosystem by introducing new treatments, bringing in product manufacturing contracts, providing a stable supply of medicines and expanding access to potentially lifesaving treatments. The pandemic has shown that Takeda can be an agile and responsive company that can adapt very quickly.
“We’re very hopeful that the growth in the Irish facilities will continue and that we will see some of the newer treatments and technologies come here to manufacture for Europe, the U.S. and other markets. I’m certain that for the next number of years, Takeda’s strong growth will continue across the commercial and production businesses which will further cement ourselves as a leader in this sector,” Ryan said.
