Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd

TSE:4502

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q2

[Takako Ohyabu, executive]

Thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule to participate in today's conference call for the press on our financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2021. I will be moderating the call today. My name is Takako Ohyabu, Chief Global Corporate Affairs Officer. Thank you very much for joining us.

First, I'd like to explain about the language setting. In the lower right corner of Zoom webinar, there is a language setting button, a globe sign. And this is the under setting button. Click on it. And then select Japanese if you want to listen in Japanese, and select English if you want to listen to English. And if you'd like to listen original voice, without interpretations, please select off. If you [ can't ] ask a question during the Q&A sessions, please set your zoom display name to your name and affiliation.

Before starting, I'd like to remind everyone that we will be discussing forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those discussed today. The factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially are discussed in our most recent Form 20-F and in our other SEC filings. Also, please refer to the important notice on Page 2 of the presentation.

Today, we have Christophe Weber, President and CEO of the company, who will be presenting today. And Masato Iwasaki, Representative Director, Japan General Affairs; and Costa Saroukos, Director and Chief Financial Officer, will join in the Q&A session.

Now Christophe will begin the presentation on the financial results. I'd like to now ask you to take a look at the presentation materials for the conference call. And as we request -- announced already, those presentation materials are available only in English. Now Christophe, the floor is yours.

[Christophe Weber, executive]

Thank you, Takako, and thank you, everyone, on the phone for joining us today. I'm very pleased to spend time with you today, and we'll take you through the progress we are making in the transformation of Takeda as we discuss our performance in the second quarter of our fiscal year.

So if you go on Slide 3, you see that Takeda, our vision is to discover and deliver life-transforming treatments, guided by our commitment to patients, our people and the planet.

Simply put, we exist to create better health for people and a brighter future for the world. While the science and technology we advance are constantly evolving, our mission remains. We move science forward so we can transform more lives. Central to this is our people, who do business with purpose to create sustainable value for shareholders and society.

On the next slide, we detail our journey in the transformation of our company, which is producing a very strong outcome as our first half result of fiscal year '21 are evidence of our progress to deliver against our strategic vision. I'll go in depth in a later slide, but the key highlights include our continued growth driven by our 14 global brands, even amid the pressure of the pandemic.

In fact, our employees have come together with a very strong commitment to make a difference for patients. Personally, I'm very inspired and energized by our colleagues' spirit and determination. We remain very confident in our R&D strategy and pipeline of about 40 clinical stage new molecular entity, 40 clinical stage new product, which are poised to deliver in the short and long term.

Today, we also confirm our fiscal year '21 management guidance and we are announcing a share buyback program, which is underscoring our confidence in our financial performance, our confidence on our business strategy, our growth outlook and also our commitment to deliver value to our shareholders.

Now let me take through -- take you through some specific results for the first half of the year. On the next slide, you can see that we are consistently delivering on the fundamentals, and our underlying revenue growth for the first half has accelerated to plus 6.8% with reported revenue growth at 12 plus 8% -- plus 12.8% compared to the prior year.

This growth continued to be driven by Takeda 14 global brand with an underlying growth of this 14 global brands of 11.4% in the first half. This 14 global brand now represents 42% of our total revenue. So we have 14 global brands, representing 42% of our total revenue growing at 11.4% in the first half.

It's an amazing transformation. It's an amazing transformation when you consider that Takeda launched its first ever global product back in 2014. Before 2014, we didn't have a single global product commercialized by the company. Today, we have 14, representing 42% of our revenue, growing in the first half of this year at 11.4%, and we expect acceleration in the second half of the year and significant revenue growth for our global brands over the near to medium term, particularly as we expand into new markets.

I also want to note that our plasma-derived therapy business continues to deliver on its commitment with strong underlying immunology growth of 11.1% for the first half of the year. It's very clear that this business is very resilient, with plasma donation volume consistently surpassing pre-COVID-19 level as early as Q1 fiscal year '21. For us, this is a very strong upside in this area of our business, with a core operating margin of the TTP business expecting to improve as revenue grow and transformation initiatives are fully implemented in the coming years.

As I alluded in the previous slide, we also remain on track to meet full year fiscal year '21 guidance of mid-single-digits underlying revenue and underlying core operating profit growth thanks to the continued performance of this 14 global brands.

I'm also very pleased to report that earlier this month, we received confirmation that we successfully addressed an FDA warning letter for our manufacturing site in Hikari. The FDA has now issued a revised voluntary action indicated status to the Hikari manufacturing site with an agreement to maintain the dialogue regarding ongoing commitment. So it's really a very positive development because the closing of the warning later and the site status change speaks to our strong track record of upholding quality standards on our close collaboration with the FDA throughout this process.

We will also continue to invest in the approximately 40 clinical stage pipeline assets that all bring the potential to transform the life of patients.

Our strong pipeline and portfolio are not built around a single flagship product of compound but instead, are highly diversified and focus in areas of high unmet patient needs. In fact, if you look at our Wave 1 pipeline, more than 1/3 of our Wave 1 pipeline has received Breakthrough Therapy designation, a true testament to our innovation and focus on targeting entirely new categories and modalities.

In fact, by any standards, we are experiencing a very remarkable year in spite of some setbacks, and I will come back to that. Our pipeline is beginning to deliver on our ambitious aspiration. I'll go a bit more in detail later on, but in this quarter alone, we received FDA approval for EXKIVITY in the U.S. and unanimous recommendation by an FDA Advisory Committee for maribavir with a decision on FDA approval schedule some time in the coming weeks.

We will also continue to evaluate opportunities for strategic partnership and collaboration that complement our therapeutic area of focus to expand patient access to treatment that they need and to help accelerate our pipeline strategy.

I'll give you a few examples. One example is a collaboration with Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals to develop TAK-999, a first-in-class RNAi therapy design to treat the underlying cause of a disease called alpha-1 antitrypsin associated liver disease. It's a very devastating condition for which there are currently no approved therapies, while TAK-999 has the potential to treat the underlying cause of this disease, thereby helping patients to avoid the need for liver transportation and associated comorbidities.

Another great example of our partnership strategy is the recent collaboration and license agreement with JCR Pharmaceuticals to commercialize JR-141 for the treatment of Hunter syndrome. JR-141 introduce a new way to treat Hunter syndrome and help maintain and improve committee function in patients living with this rare disease.

It's also very notable that this is the first time Takeda has entered an agreement with a Japanese company to commercialize a program outside of Japan. I think it's an indication of how we are perceived as a global partner of choice among Japanese company today.

And just this week, another example is that we announced the acquisition of GammaDelta Therapeutics to further strengthen our immuno-oncology and cell therapy pipeline with a novel platform leveraging gamma delta T cell. This was, in fact, a build-to-buy collaboration started in 2017, which brings to Takeda a novel cell therapy approach to target solid tumor and hematologic malignancies.

As noted earlier, as a signal in our confidence in our strategy and our growth outlook, we are initiating a share buyback of up to JPY 100 billion today.

Having said all of this, allow me to address our recent clinical development. It goes without saying that truly innovative R&D organization experience setbacks and challenges as important progress is made. This is what become the leading edge of science is all about. This is what it means being an R&D-driven company.

So we recently announced that the safety signal has emerged in Phase II studies of TAK-994, an investigational oral orexin agonist for the treatment of narcolepsy type 1, which is a chronic neurological disorder with a significant unmet need. We will continue to analyze the data, and I want to reinforce that we are committed to advancing our multi-asset orexin franchise because we have multiple molecules in this franchise.

We also announced that the pevonedistat Phase III PANTHER study did not achieve some significant statistical significance for the primary endpoint of event-free survival compared to azacitidine.

This is why earlier, I shared with you that the diversity in our clinical programs and approximately 40 clinical stage new molecular entity gives our pipeline strength and resilience, because this is not 1 or 2 setbacks which will derail this pipeline when you have 40 new molecular entity in clinical development and progressing. So we are very excited about the potential to deliver dozens of new therapies to patients in the next decade. So let's not lose sight of that.

Altogether, our plan is clear and consistent. Our strategic vision focuses on leveraging the strength of Takeda's 14 global brands, which will remain a growth driver over the coming years, providing us with the momentum to support the growth potential of our exciting pipeline.

In the next slide, I want to share with you the role and the critical mission that we are playing to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. As a marketing operation holder for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccines in Japan, we have distributed 50 million doses in Japan and expect to begin importing and distributing an additional 50 million dose as early as the beginning of 2022.

We are also partnering with Novavax in Japan to develop and manufacture up to 250 million dose per year and commercialize our COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which will be produced at our Hikari facility in Japan. We aim to begin the distribution in early calendar year 2022 under the government vaccines program, depending, of course, a number of factors, including regulatory approval.

I want to note here that Novavax pricing in Japan will reflect the government subsidy we received to build the manufacturing capacity in Hikari.

We have a very important role to play to continue combating the COVID-19 pandemic. And I think this work has provided very valuable insight that we are applying to all vaccines development program.

Now on the next slide, I would like to go a bit deeper into our first semester results. Here, we see a bit more how the revenue of our 14 global brands are driving Takeda top line growth.

In total, these product generated JPY 692.2 billion, close to $6.2 billion in H1. And as I said previously, they now represent 42% of our core revenue.

Versus previous year, our 14 global brands grew plus 11.4% on an underlying basis or JPY 96.3 billion in absolute terms. So if you were to analyze that, it means that these brands are generating close to JPY 200 billion of incremental revenue year-on-year.

This reflected a strong acceleration in Q2 versus Q1. And I'm very pleased to report that these brands are driving growth in all regions: U.S., Japan, emerging markets, China, Europe. So this is a very strong base from which we will grow. We believe that the acceleration of the 14 global brand revenue will continue in the second half of the fiscal year and our outlook for the full year underlying growth is in the 15% range for these 14 global brand.

So that will means that the proportion of total revenue from these global brand could go as high as 45%. So as we look beyond fiscal year 2021, we expect the momentum of these 14 global brand to continue as we expand market penetration in other countries as we increase the disease awareness and as we continue to globally roll out the product in countries like China, emerging markets and Japan.

So on the next slide, it's a bit more focused on our pipeline, and I'd like to show this slide to underscore the depth and breadth of our pipeline of about 40 new molecular entities that we'll deliver in the near and long term. The quarter demonstrated that our strategy is delivering. As mentioned earlier, we are excited by the promise and potential of our pipeline as demonstrated in the recent EXKIVITY approval in the U.S. and a unanimous recommendation by an FDA Advisory Committee for maribavir.

We are also experiencing some setback, as I said earlier, with our pipeline of 40 new molecular entity in clinical stage has a depth and diversity to deliver over time and to help us continue to grow.

Let me also talk further about how we are building this long-term pipeline. In addition to the update that I shared on an earlier slide, we are making big investments in area that will transform patient treatment for many disease, including oncology, rare genetic and hematology disease, neuroscience disease, gastroenterology, and we are also doing targeted investments in [ das fas ] derived therapy and vaccines.

In these areas, you have a desperate need for innovation and new treatment option. Consider our oncology pipeline, for example. We are advancing multiple first-in-class immunotherapy candidate that has the potential to be transformative for people with blood cancers and solid tumors.

We are also seeing great promises with our pipeline compounds in rare disease, where there is often an incredibly small patient population but the desperate need for effective treatment option. In the U.S., approximately 50% of Takeda pipeline is being developed in a rare or orphan disease area and addresses area of very high unmet need.

So our conviction is that our science is strong and it has motivated us to increase our R&D investment to JPY 522 billion in fiscal year '21, which is a growth of 14.5% since prior year. And this is an effort to ensure that we are in a position to deliver the next generation of potentially transformative therapy.

Let's now take the example of EXKIVITY on the next slide. EXKIVITY is important new treatment for adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer with epidermal growth factor receptor exon 20 insertion mutation. It is the first and only approved oral therapy specifically designed to target EGFR exon 20 insertion mutation for patients whose disease has progressed on or after platinum-based chemotherapy. This disease has been historically underdiagnosed and patients have, until recently, very limited effective treatment option. So the approval of EXKIVITY advance the treatment landscape and for the first time, afford patient the option of an effective oral therapy.

Another example on the next slide is about maribavir, which is potentially transforming the way cytomegalovirus, or CMV, infection is treated. If approved by the FDA, maribavir will be the first and only treatment indicated for adult transplant receptions with refractory CMV infection and disease, with or without resistance. CMV is a very challenging infection in transplant patients with an estimated incidence rate greater than 25% in solid organ transplant and stem cell transplant recipients. We are proud to advance science in this critical area of need.

So EXKIVITY and maribavir are just 2 examples of how Takeda approaches scientific development. We tackle area for patients who have serious need for limited or yet to be discovered treatment option. So we are very encouraged by this recent development and continue to look forward to upcoming milestone in our innovative and diversified pipeline.

So on the next slide, as I shared earlier, we have announced a share buyback program today, and therefore, we have revised [ our long gauge ] on shareholder return to state our intention to maintain our well-established dividend policy of JPY 180 per share annually alongside share buyback when appropriate. This addition, this buyback does not compromise any other aspect of our capital allocation strategy, and we remain committed to investing in our growth drivers, deleveraging towards our target of low 2s net debt to adjusted EBITDA and maintaining our existing dividend policy of JPY 180 per share annually.

Altogether, we are delivering on our financial commitments. We are guided by our values and commitment to patients, people on the planet, and we will allocate capital to maximize value for patients, the society and shareholders.

On my final slide and to close, our transformation continues to bring Takeda's future into focus. In 2014, back in 2014, we set out on a journey to accelerate our globalization and to reinvent Takeda into a truly values-based, R&D-driven global company positioned for long-term business growth. Reflecting on this journey to date, it's very important to recognize, I think, critical progress we made. Takeda has gained a leadership position in our core business areas, including oncology, rare genetic and hematology, neuroscience, gastroenterology and plasma-derived therapy. We led and completed the largest foreign acquisition in Japan history. This gave us important scale, helped grow our margin and established a portfolio of 14 global brands that are generating today's steady organic performance.

Prior to 2014, Takeda did not have any global brands. And with the near term on the robust growth of our 14 global brand as our foundation, our reimagined pipeline and approximately 40 clinical stage assets that provide the potential for an unprecedented number of regulatory approval over the next several years. And that brings us back to our vision: to discover and deliver life-transforming treatments, guided by our commitment to patients, our people and the planet. Takeda growth strategy is a reflection of that vision.

With that, I would like to invite our CFO, Costa Saroukos; and Japan General Affair, Masato Iwasaki, to join me for our Q&A.

Let me now turn it back to Takako. Thank you very much.

[Takako Ohyabu, executive]

[Operator Instructions] And if you ask a question in Japanese, please select the language in Japanese. And if you want to ask a question in English, then please set the button to be in English. And if you are on the original channel, then you just please keep the interpretation button off. [Operator Instructions].

The first question, Nikkei Newspaper.

[Kenya Akama]

[Interpreted] This is Akama of Nikkei. I have 2 questions. First question is about TAK-994. Within the fiscal year ending in March 2023, you will be deciding the future development policy. And in case that -994 will be discontinued, then the JPY 5 trillion revenue target, do you think that you can still maintain and achieve that target?

[Christophe Weber, executive]

Thank you very much for the question. You see, TAK-994 is one molecule within our very broad pipeline portfolio. Of course, it's an important program, but it's -- we have multiple molecules within the orexin franchise. So fortunately, TAK-994 is not the only molecule that we are developing to treat narcolepsy. So as an orexin agonist, we have other molecules that we already started to develop as backup, like -861. And therefore, that's why we remain extremely committed to this orexin franchise because we have seen a level of efficacy never seen before. It's transformative for patients. So we are extremely committed to the orexin franchise, and that's why we are also very confident. Because of our broad pipeline but also because of our orexin franchise, we are very confident about our ability to grow in the long term.

[Kenya Akama]

[Interpreted] And let me ask you the second question. And the second question goes to Costa. At this time, you announced the sale share buyback. And I think it's after 13 years of interval. So the -- once again, regarding this share buyback, what are the reasons? What process did you take to make this decision? And also, what about any possible impact onto the deleveraging? You said that there will be no impact. But what is the rationale? And the fund for share buyback, how -- or from which source do you get that fund?

[Costa Saroukos, executive]

I thank you very much for your question. Firstly, let me break it down on the reasons for doing the share buyback. So as a management team and as a Board members, we believe that this was an opportunity to buy back our shares at a significant discount. We truly believe that our current share price is significantly undervalued. It's -- even when you look at the average sell-side analyst, the value of our share is 30% undervalued. So we thought there was firstly an opportunity to really buy back our shares there.

Secondly, we did this buyback from a position of strength. What does that mean? Well, you saw our numbers for first half of the year, we're seeing acceleration of revenue growing at 6.8%, driven by our 14 global brands. Our 14 global brands, as Christophe mentioned, represents 42% of our total core revenue and will continue to grow. We expect our 14 global brands this fiscal year to grow in the mid-teens.

And then on top of that, you see how much cash flow we're generating because of our strong performance, the synergies that we were able to execute integration earlier than expected in the previous year. So all this is helping generate an abundance of cash flow.

And finally, the other very important point is that it gives us the confidence that our -- it underscores the confidence of our business strategy. As Christophe mentioned, we have 40 new molecular entities in our pipeline. So we have a rich pipeline. We expect numerous proof of concept readouts in the next 12 months. So the fundamentals of our business is very, very strong.

And so to answer your question, we are funding this share buyback of JPY 100 billion from our operating cash flow, from the strong performance we've been able to deliver and also unlocking some of the working capital improvements. So this is the fundamental way, and we don't see any impact on our net debt to adjusted EBITDA. Because of the strong performance that we've seen, we're still committed to delivering our net debt to adjusted EBITDA targets of low 2x by fiscal year 2023. Thank you for your question.

[Takako Ohyabu, executive]

Thank you. Next is Numata-san from MIX.

[Yoshiyuki Numata]

[Interpreted] Yes. I'm Chief Editor of MIX. My name is Numata. Since Iwasaki-san is here, I would love to ask a question. Within Japan, what are the highlights for Japan? That's my first question. And the second question is, I know that Takeda has gone through a lot of transformation and there was also the pandemic. Your business style must have changed quite a lot, especially in terms of how you engage with the doctors, health care professionals. So I would like to ask you, Iwasaki-san, what have you done? And what are the challenges going forward?

[Masato Iwasaki, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much for your question. And I would like to take this one. Situation in Japan has not really changed from before. The pandemic did have an impact in terms of digital and online information activities. But actually, we had already started this very early. As you may know, our activity level did not really go down during the pandemic. It actually accelerated, so to speak, and then we could still deliver the information.

Another thing that we would like to emphasize is that as far as our initiative with the COVID-19 pandemic is concerned, we spent a lot of energy to make sure that there are no mistakes and errors. As Christophe has mentioned before, in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Takeda is playing a very important role. So thank you very much for your question. Thank you.

[Takako Ohyabu, executive]

So moving on, [ Asuka ]-san from [indiscernible].

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] This is [ Asuka ]. I'd like to ask 2 questions, please. My first question about the Novavax vaccine. In the slide that you shared, early 2022, you'll be starting distribution. I think there was a media report in the U.S. that there was some manufacturing delay. And in the U.S. and in EU, filing is being delayed. Do you see any impact in Japan when it comes to this kind of approval when it comes to the EUA? So what is the scheduling going forward with Novavax vaccine?

[Masato Iwasaki, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much for your question. I'd like to answer that question. This is Iwasaki speaking. With Novavax, we are working very closely, and we are in a situation of manufacturing vaccines early. In early 2022, we would like to start supplying and that is a schedule that we are aiming for.

So with Novavax, we are in close collaboration so that there will be no delay in start of production, and that is what we are considering at the moment. Of course, MHLW collaboration is also very important for us.

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] So in order not a delay in production start, but you said that in starting distribution early 2022, you need to start production now. But with no filing of the EUA yet, will it be done in a timely manner? Because the situation is continuing, so do you have any other additional information that you can share with us?

[Masato Iwasaki, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much for your additional question, but I am so sorry, but there is no more information that we can disclose with you as of today. So when there are any updated information, we will give you an appropriate report.

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] Understood. Okay then, and I also want to ask about TAK-994. I'm not sure if it was really answered. But in the orexin franchise, the commitment will not change. But you mentioned that JPY 5 trillion target will not change. But even if it was a potential TAK-994 blockbuster drug, you will be able to fulfill that target. Is that correct?

[Christophe Weber, executive]

Well, the orexin franchise has a very strong potential because we are seeing very, very significant efficacy never seen before by any -- never seen before. So the level of efficacy of this orexin agonist is very high. So that's why we remain very committed to the orexin franchise. 861 -- TAK-861 is less advanced than TAK-994, but it's already a product in clinical stage. So we'll aim to accelerate as much as possible the development of -861, understand better its safety profile, but -- and we remain very committed to the orexin franchise. But again, our pipeline will continue to evolve. We have a very large number of assets. Many of these assets have a very high potential, which is not proven yet, but very exciting potential. For example, very soon, we will disclose some data very -- which we believe will be a very exciting data on TAK-573 and oncology assets. Just one example.

But I think this is -- what is important is that we have -- we don't rely on 1 or 2 assets in our pipeline or in our portfolio. We have 14 global brand growing. And then we have about 40 clinical stage assets. Some will succeed, some will fail, but it's more a year of to grow in the future and to move towards our goal that we expressed in the past.

[Takako Ohyabu, executive]

Next is [ Takahane-san ], [ Kagakuko Unipo ]

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] [ Takahane ] of [ Kagakuko Unipo ]. Recently, you have announced the contract with JR-141, the collaboration with JCR Pharmaceuticals. And in this agreement, in a deal with [indiscernible] U.S, you obtained the right. And for the U.S. market, you have an option, so you may be able to deliver a market in the U.S. in the future. Why it is so? Is it because you have some plans to be supplied by China or any other reasons behind?

[Christophe Weber, executive]

It's a broad partnership with JCR. There is some sequencing and that's why the agreement is designed like that, but we are the global partner of JCR outside of Japan. So we are very committed to that. But of course, we need to continue to develop the molecules. The development is not finished. And I think this is why the agreement is designed like that. But we are very excited about this development on this program, and we are very excited to have been chosen as a global partner of choice, which, as I explained earlier, is the first time that a Japanese company is partnering with Takeda, another Japanese company to commercialize the product globally. And I think that that's a really interesting step, and we are looking forward to it.

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] And relating to that, JCR has BBB passing technology. And you, I think, had some partnership with Denali company and Denali has a similar technologies and probably having similar molecules. So Denali and JCR, their pipelines or any compound molecules priorities, are you going to deal with them just in parallel? Or do you have any ideas of any priorities given the differences of any technological advancement or any other aspects of businesses comparing the JCR and Denali, please?

[Christophe Weber, executive]

Well, we know we did this partnership with JCR because we have been very impressed by their technology in the research. And I think this is our R&D model. Our R&D model is to be focused by therapy area. Our R&D model is to only develop life-transforming treatment, life-transforming medicine. And then our R&D model is to partner. We have a very strong in-house expertise, we have a very strong science -- scientific expertise in-house, but we know that we will see will be successful with partnering. So for us, partnering with Denali, partnering with JCR, considering that we are committed to neuroscience. So therefore, you need to have the medicines to pass a brain barrier. It makes sense. And we are not worried to, on one side, be a partner for JCR on one product, on the other side, work with Denali for the development of other products because we need -- passing the brain-blood barrier is difficult. So in fact, it's good to have multiple options.

[Takako Ohyabu, executive]

Next question will be the last one. From MIX, we have [ Mochizuki ]-san.

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] This is [ Mochizuki ] with MIX. I have 2 questions. Question one. Today, you announced the acquisition. What is the purpose? And in terms of cell therapy, what kind of platform and the technology are you looking for to enhance through this acquisition?

[Christophe Weber, executive]

Yes. So we've been working with GammaDelta since 2017. So we have been a partner with GammaDelta for 2017 and at the time, we created an option to buy the company if we felt that the progress is good. And this is what we are seeing today. So it's -- we are in a privileged position where we know exactly what we are buying. And this is part of our overall oncology cell therapy strategy to look at a way to use our own immunity to fight the cancer. And the promise with the GammaDelta cell therapy is that, one, it would be allogenic. So it would be much easier to use. And the other promise is that it could be more effective against solid tumor because the problem with current therapies is that they are less effective against solid tumors.

So it's a very promising technology, and that's why we are very excited about this acquisition to continue our progress in oncology and cell therapy. And there is also a strategic connection with our partnership with Professor [indiscernible] and TESARO because potentially, this gamma delta cell could be produced using IPS technology that we are developing with TESARO. So there is also some potential strategic synergies there.

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] My second question. So you have been talking about JCR Pharma. Going forward, partnership with Japanese companies who want to go global, do you want to do more of this in the future? What is your partnership policy or strategy?

[Christophe Weber, executive]

Our partnership is to help develop innovative treatment and to commercialize globally this innovative treatment. So if we can be of help for any pharmaceutical company in Japan which has a promising treatment but need some support to develop and commercialize, we could be a good partner, especially and mainly in the therapy area on which we are focusing on. And I think this is something that we will be very happy to discuss with other pharmaceutical partners.

[Takako Ohyabu, executive]

With that, we'd like to close the conference call for today. Thank you so much for your participation despite your busy schedule, and we ask for your continued support. Thank you.

[Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]