Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. on Tuesday raised its net loss, operating profit and sales projections for the full business year through March, benefitting from cost cuts following its integration with Irish drugmaker Shire Plc., which it purchased last year.

Takeda is now expecting a core operating profit, excluding costs related to the buyout of Shire, of 950 billion yen ($8.71 billion), compared with 930 billion yen forecast in October.

Takeda projected a net loss of 162 billion yen for the current business year, compared with a previously estimated loss of 273 billion yen, mainly resulting from a write-down of Shire's inventory.

The Japanese company completed the 6.2 trillion yen takeover of Shire in January last year, the biggest-ever Japanese acquisition of a foreign company.

It also upgraded its sales outlook to 3.29 trillion yen from 3.26 trillion yen due to the robust performance of its mainstay drugs, remaining on course to become the first Japanese pharmaceutical company to record annual sales of more than 3 trillion yen.

For the nine months through Dec. 31, Takeda posted a net profit of 42.52 billion yen, down 74.1 percent from a year earlier. Sales grew 82.6 percent to 2.52 trillion yen.

==Kyodo

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