Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. said Tuesday its consolidated net profit in the first half of the 2001 business year increased 45.3 percent from a year earlier to 130.85 billion yen, due mainly to an increase in overseas sales of medicine.
The nation's top drugmaker said group pretax profit increased 22.2 percent to 186.18 billion yen on a 7.7 percent gain in sales to 510.52 billion yen. Group net profit per share was 148.26 yen, up from 102.07 yen a year earlier.
The Osaka-based company said it plans to raise its interim dividend payment to 30 yen per share. The company's interim dividend in 2000 was 5 yen.
Sales at Takeda's medicine-related operations in the first half rose 20.2 percent to 430.5 billion yen. In particular, overseas sales jumped 44.4 percent to 169.9 billion yen, the company said.
Blood-pressure drugs and those for ulcers sold well on the domestic market, while sales of diabetes drugs doubled overseas, it said.
In August, possible side effects led the company to suspend sales of its cholesterol-lowering drug Certa as well as Calan, a drug to improve circulation metabolism in the brain. But sales of other products more than offset the withdrawal of these two, Takeda Chemical said.
On a parent-only basis, the company registered a net profit of 97.41 billion yen in the April-September period, up 44.6 percent from the same period last year.
Parent pretax profit in the six-month period came to 135.04 billion yen, up 11.4 percent from a year earlier.
For the full year to March 2002, Takeda expects its consolidated net profit to surge 58 percent to 232 billion yen, a record high for the eighth consecutive year.
It expects group pretax profit to increase 31.6 percent to 345 billion yen, marking a record high for the 10th straight year, on a 3.8 percent gain in sales to 1 trillion yen, a record for the 11th consecutive year.