Takeda R&D head Andy Plump to retire after a decade

Andy Plump, President, Research & Development, Takeda, who overhauled the company’s pipeline over more than a decade, will retire in June 2027, the Japanese firm announced this week.

Plump will remain president of R&D until a successor is appointed and then support the handover, staying on Takeda’s board through the shareholder meeting in June 2027.

Julie Kim, Chief Executive, Takeda, credited him with leaving the business on firmer ground. “His contributions have advanced groundbreaking science, strengthened our R&D organisation and developed exceptional talent, creating a lasting foundation to serve patients for years to come,” she said, adding that the rebuilt late-stage pipeline now holds three medicines poised to launch in the coming months.

Overhaul, partnerships and deals

Hired from Sanofi in 2015, Plump was brought in to turn a centuries-old, small-molecule-focused drugmaker into a nimbler and more innovative one. He has been candid that the reset was painful, recalling that the research organisation “almost came to a halt” during an 18-month realignment in which Takeda produced no first-in-human candidates from its own labs.

His strategy pushed Takeda outward, building ties with more than 200 biotech firms and diversifying well beyond small molecules. It underpinned a run of dealmaking, including the $62bn acquisition of Shire in 2019 that created the company’s rare disease and plasma-derived therapy business, and more recent moves to license assets from China, such as a $1.2bn cancer therapy deal with Innovent Biologics.

Setbacks along the way

The record was mixed. Takeda expanded to around 12 therapeutic modalities by 2020 before narrowing to four, and late last year abandoned cell therapy despite once treating it as a priority.

The company also weathered the withdrawal of a lung cancer medicine, a regulatory setback for its dengue vaccine and manufacturing problems affecting a rare endocrine treatment, while some investors questioned the returns on the Shire deal.

‘Great confidence in the future’

Plump framed his departure with optimism. “Leading Takeda R&D has been one of the greatest privileges of my career,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “As I look towards retirement, I do so with profound gratitude and great confidence in the future of Takeda R&D.”