Takeda CEO succession confirmed as Weber plans retirement

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Julie Kim, incoming 2026 Takeda CEO
Takeda

Takeda's long-serving chief executive Christophe Weber has said he will retire next year, after 12 years at the Japanese drugmaker.

Weber – who was briefly chief operating officer of Takeda before rising to the CEO role and was the first non-Japanese person to lead the 243-year-old company – will be replaced by Julie Kim, who is currently head of Takeda's US business unit.

Kim will be proposed as a candidate for election at a shareholders' meeting in June 2026, when Weber will formally step down. He will no longer hold a seat on the board after his retirement.

Weber is credited with modernising Takeda and particularly transforming the company's R&D operations, which were previously split into three units with separate management and budgets, and reining back its involvement in over-the-counter and generic drugs in favour of innovative medicines.

One of his first moves was to unify R&D under a single decision-making structure and narrow its focus to six key areas – gastrointestinal and inflammation, neuroscience, plasma-derived therapies, vaccines, cancer medicines, and rare disease therapies – and, since then, R&D spending has doubled, while annual sales have risen by an even greater margin.

One of the signature actions taken by Weber was the $62 billion takeover of UK drugmaker Shire in 2019, which helped Takeda expand into US and European markets and ramped up its rare disease presence, although, a recent Reuters analysis suggested that it delivered little value for shareholders.

Kim - who was formerly at Shire - is "an outstanding leader who has made significant contributions to the company, notably in leading the US business and plasma-derived therapies business unit previously," said Takeda chair Masami Iijima.

"She is an experienced, values-based leader who will fully uphold our corporate culture and expand the impact we can have for patients around the world."

Weber said it is the right time to appoint a successor, given the company's "competitive growth outlook, new product launches expected from the second half of 2026 onwards, and the anticipated retirement of some external independent directors in the coming years," adding that the selection of Kim is "outstanding."

Takeda has seen mixed results in its so-called Wave1 pipeline of new drug candidates – a group that were set to reach the market by 2024 and deliver $10 billion in peak sales.

Takeda was forced to withdraw lung cancer therapy Exkivity (mobocertinib) from the market after it failed a confirmatory trial intended to firm up its 2021 accelerated approval, but last year it secured approval for Eohilia (budesonide), which became the first and only oral therapy in the US for eosinophilic oesophagitis (EoE).

Kim will oversee the rollout of Eohilia and other recent launches like colorectal cancer treatment Fruzaqla (fruquintinib) and Adzynma for congenital thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (cTTP), and efforts to bring late-stage drug candidates to market.

Takeda's near-term pipeline includes oveporexton for narcolepsy, zasocitinib for psoriasis, and polycythemia vera candidate rusfertide, which are all on track for filing in fiscal years 2025 and 2026, according to a recent update.