Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. said Wednesday it expects a 35.6 percent rise in group net profit for the current fiscal year, helped by lower costs it will book for the purchase of Irish drugmaker Shire Plc.

Takeda projects a group net profit of 60 billion yen ($559 million) in the fiscal year through March 2021 after seeing a profit drop of 67.3 percent last fiscal year, squeezed costs to purchase Shire.

Group sales are forecast to fall 1.3 percent to 3.25 trillion yen for this fiscal year. The company said the coronavirus outbreak might slow demand, significantly delay its clinical trial programs or disrupt supply chains.

But the business "will not be materially affected by" the virus spread, it added.

For the business year ended this March, Takeda posted a group net profit of 44.24 billion yen, down from 135.19 billion yen a year earlier.

The company logged 3.29 trillion yen in group sales last fiscal year, up 56.9 percent from a year earlier, becoming the first Japanese pharmaceutical company to top 3 trillion yen in sales after buying Shire for 6.2 trillion yen last year in the biggest-ever Japanese acquisition of a foreign company.

==Kyodo

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