On May 17th, 2010, “Astellas Pharma Inc.” announced that it agreed to buy “OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc.”, the drug company in USA. The total amount of its TOB will be about US$ 4 billion. Most drug companies in Japan are facing at the year 2010 problem. Most of their bread-and-butter products are to be off-patent production within 2010 and also they have never been able to develop new drug well, so they are concerned about declines in their revenues. Astellas intends to get the present profit-making source by this TOB. OSI has the strong cancer therapy product of Tarceva (erlotinib).

 Although Astellas proposed a friendly buyout offer to OSI, it has carried out a hostile takeover from this March because of the hostility of management team of OSI. It has postponed the period of TOB twice, and finally it succeeded in TOB by increasing the purchase price to US$ 57.5 from US$ 52.0 per share.

 Recent TOB by Japanese pharmaceutical companies : On January, 2008, “Eisai Co., Ltd.” took over “MGI Pharma in USA” by about US$ 4.5 billion. On May, 2008, “Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited” took over “Millennium in USA” by about US$ 10.1 billion. On October 2008, “Shionogi & Co., Ltd.” took over “Saieru Pharma in USA” by US$ about 1.5 billion. On November 2008, “Daiichi Sankyo Limited Company” took over “Ranbaxy Laboratories in India” by about US$ 53.3 billion. And then on October 2009, “Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd.” took over “Sepracor Inc. in USA” by about US$ 24.4 billion.