Japan's Takeda says 9-mth operating profit jumped 29%, raises forecast

FILE PHOTO: Takeda Pharmaceutical's signboard is seen on its headquarters building in Tokyo, Japan January 30, 2018. Picture taken January 30, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical Co said on Thursday nine-month profit surged 29% from a year earlier, driven by sales growth for its 14 major drug brands.

Operating profit was 462.46 billion yen ($4.04 billion) in the nine months through Dec. 31, the drugmaker said in a news release.

Takeda raised its full-year operating profit forecast 1.1% to 515 billion yen. That compares with a consensus forecast for profit of 491.05 billion yen, according to a Refinitiv poll of 13 analysts.

The drugmaker said sales growth of mainstay drugs such as ulcerative colitis treatment Entyvio, along with expenditure controls and exchange effects were behind the forecast revision.

Takeda said it aims to distribute the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Novavax Inc within Japan in early calendar 2022, subject to approval from regulators.

The Japanese government has agreed to purchase 150 million doses of the Novavax vaccine, which is to be manufactured domestically by Takeda.

($1 = 114.5200 yen)

(Reporting by Rocky Swift; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Sam Holmes and Kim Coghill)

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