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Takeda CEO Christophe Weber plans to retire next year after a decade steering the Japanese drugmaker, a tenure in which he led Takeda through one of the largest pharmaceutical mergers in history and a major research and development revamp.
Julie Kim, currently president of the company’s U.S. business unit, will succeed Weber, backed by a unanimous vote of Takeda’s board. Kim, a graduate of Dartmouth University and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, spent more than 13 years at Baxter International and then worked for the Baxter spinoff Baxalta, which became part of Shire in 2016 and then Takeda in 2019.
Weber praised Kim’s “values, intellect, grit and dedication to our people and patients” in a statement released by Takeda Thursday. Weber will work with Kim over the next year and a half on the transition and then plans to leave the company without holding a board seat.
Weber, who joined Takeda in 2014 and became CEO the following year, is one of the longest-tenured CEOs in the pharmaceutical industry. He arrived at Takeda after more than 21 years at GSK in various positions, finishing as president and general manager for vaccines.
As CEO, Weber set out to shake up Takeda and turn the centuries-old company into a stronger global competitor. In 2016, soon after he became CEO, Takeda announced a restructuring that refocused research on three therapeutic areas and centralized operations in San Diego, Boston and Shonan, Japan.
Takeda’s $62 billion takeover of Shire in 2019 supercharged the effort, shaving five years off the company’s projected timelines for profit goals, R&D chief Andy Plump said at the time. The deal gave Takeda a rare disease business, stronger positions in hematology and immunology and access to a greater market share in the U.S.
Still, some questioned whether the Shire deal was worth the cost. And Takeda faced several setbacks during Weber’s tenure, including manufacturing difficulties for a drug acquired in the Shire deal, a misfire in seeking U.S. approval for a dengue vaccine and the withdrawal of a lung cancer drug. In 2024, the company announced another restructuring likely to result in layoffs.
When Kim takes the reins at Takeda next year, she will become one of the few female CEOs leading top drugmakers, joining the ranks of GSK’s Emma Walmsley, Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ Reshma Kewalramani and Merck KGaA's Belén Garijo.