[Company analysis] Astellas Pharma Inc. (アステラス製薬)

「Astellas Pharma Inc. (アステラス製薬)」is one of Japan's five largest pharmaceutical companies(「Takeda Pharmaceutical Company(武田薬品工業)」、「Astellas Pharma(アステラス製薬)」、「Daiichi Sankyo(第一三共)」、「Otsuka Holdings(大塚ホールディングス)」、「Eisai(エーザイ)」). And this company was established by a merger of 「Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical(山之内製薬)」 and「Fujisawa Pharmaceutical(藤沢薬品工業)」 on April 1, 2005. They are also known for as a performance-based company. The number of consolidated employees is about 16,242.

 

1. Company Profile

2. Summary and Features

3. Major Business

4. Financial Information

 

 

 

1. Company Profile

 

※Unit is JPY million, as of 2019

Company name	Astellas Pharma Inc.
Company name (Japanese)	アステラス製薬
Date of establishment	1923
Headquarters location	東京都中央区日本橋本町2-5-1
Capital	103,001
Consolidated sales	1,306,348
Consolidated operating profit	243,912
Consolidated total assets	1,897,648
Consolidated capital	1,258,396
Capital adequacy ratio	66.3%
Consolidated number of employees	16,242

 

 

 

2. Summary and Features

 
「Fujisawa Pharmaceutical」, one of the predecessors of「Astellas Pharma」, was founded in Osaka in 1894. Meanwhile,「Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical」 began in 1923. The two companies opened offices in Taiwan in 1962 and 1963, respectively, and in the United States and Europe in 1977, and began to expand overseas almost at the same time. Eventually, in 2005, the two merged. The company name comes from the Latin word "Stella" meaning "star".

Against with the trend of large-scale M & A of overseas pharmaceutical companies, which has accelerated since the 1990s,「Fujisawa Pharmaceutical」and「Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical」recognized each other as partners that can take advantage of the merger. "Fujisawa" has a sales network in the U.S. market and has strength in developing new drugs from natural products, while "Yamanouchi" is strong in Europe and has technological capabilities in the synthetic pharmaceutical field. In other words, there were few overlapping areas, so it was suitable for a merger.

Legally, this was an absorption-type merger but in reality, it was an equal merger. That is why both companies had to discard the existing company name and created new names . At the time of the merger,「Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical」was No.3 and 「Fujisawa Pharmaceutical」was No.5 in sales ranking in Japanese pharmaceutical industry. But as of this merger, they became the「Astellas Pharma」which has No.2 sales until the rapid growth of 「Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd.(第一三共)」

In Japanese pharmaceutical industry,「Takeda Pharmaceutical」is top sales company which has a corporate culture that emphasized teamwork and unity above all.  Contrastively, 「Astellas Pharma」has a corporate culture with performance basis. There is no seniority-wage pay system and HR evaluation is based on the commitment to winning. Naturally, the employees of Astellas is tend to be physically and mentally tough.

 

 

 

3. Major Business

 

■ Manufacturing, sales and import / export of pharmaceuticals

 

 

 

4. Financial information

 

※Unit is JPY million

		2016	2017	2018
Consolidated sales		1,311,665	1,300,316	1,306,348
Consolidated operating profit		260,830	213,258	243,912
Consolidated total assets		1,814,072	1,858,205	1,897,648
Consolidated net assets		1,271,810	1,268,289	1,258,396
Breakdown of sales	Japan	464,082	406,414	376,157
	United States	388,539	404,409	428,776
	Other American country	24,086	30,699	30,870
	EMEA	343,401	351,280	357,013
	Asia and Oceania	91,558	107,513	113,532