Former head of Takeda Pharmaceutical dies at 80

Yasuchika Hasegawa, former president of Takeda Pharmaceutical and former chair of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, or Keizai Doyukai, died at a Tokyo hospital on July 3. He was 80.

Born in Nagato, Yamaguchi Prefecture, he joined the major drugmaker in 1970 after graduating from Waseda University.

In 2003, Hasegawa took over the presidency from the late Kunio Takeda of the founding family, after heading the international pharmaceutical operations.

As president, he paved the way for the company to go global, spending ¥1 trillion to buy a Swiss pharmaceutical giant and inviting Christophe Weber to succeed him. Weber, the first foreign president of Takeda Pharmaceutical, left the post in June this year.

Yasuchika Hasegawa, former president of Takeda Pharmaceutical and former chair of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives | TAKEDA PHARMACEUTICAL / VIA JIJI

Hasegawa chaired Doyukai for four years from 2011, when he was president of his company. He also served as a private-sector member of the government’s Industrial Competitiveness Council and an outside board member of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.

Akio Yamaguchi, the current chair of Keizai Doyukai, released a comment on Hasegawa on Friday, praising his acts at the time of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster that especially impacted the Tohoku region.

Hasegawa “stood by the affected areas not only in words, but also in action,” Yamaguchi said, referring to the summer seminar held in Sendai just four months after the disaster.

Hasegawa’s leadership “set the trend for business managers to visit the Tohoku region,” Yamaguchi added.

He also praised Hasegawa’s participation in the government council and his contribution to accelerating negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal for free trade.