Japan's Takeda hikes outlook on cancer drug sales, third quarter profit jumps

TOKYO (Reuters) - Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd said its annual profit will outstrip a prior estimate and reach a six-year high, boosted by stronger sales of the cancer drug Velcade, after earlier reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings.

Velcade is used to treat multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. A U.S. court last year upheld Takeda's patent, giving the drug maker rights to exclusively sell the drug until 2022.

Takeda, Japan's largest drugmaker by sales, has been focusing its research on developing treatments for cancer and diseases of the digestive and nervous systems.

Digestive disease treatments are proving a growth driver for Takeda, with sales of Entyvio up 45.5 percent to 149.5 billion yen (963.49 million pounds) year on year in the nine months to December and Takecab up 70.5 percent to 42 billion.

Last month, Takeda said it would pay about $646 million for Belgian biotech group TiGenix NV (G9U.BR) whose drug Cx601, a stem cell therapy for Crohn's disease - an inflammatory bowel disease, is moving towards approval in Europe.

For the third quarter ended December, Takeda's operating profit jumped almost 60 percent to 87.9 billion yen, from 55.4 billion yen a year ago. This beat an average estimate of around 51 billion yen from two analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

For the current financial year, Takeda forecast an operating profit of 218.7 billion yen, versus its prior forecast of 200 billion yen, the highest since the year ending March 2012.

That compares with a consensus estimate of 225 billion yen from 13 analysts.

(Reporting by Sam Nussey; Editing by Himani Sarkar)