Faced with a future of evaporating Xtandi sales, Astellas has set out ambitions to license fresh assets while also continuing to tighten its belt.
The Japanese pharma may be expecting to rake in sales of 2.2 trillion yen ($13 billion) from Xtandi this year, but this is likely to be as good as it gets for the Pfizer-partnered blockbuster going forward. Astellas’ own slides show these prostate cancer sales withering away toward a “pipeline-led inflection point” in 2029.
To prepare for this eventuality, the company unveiled a corporate multi-year strategic plan (PDF) Tuesday morning that will act as a roadmap for the pharma to hit “sustainable growth.”
Part of this plan involves pursuing “value-enhancing [business development] with target and discipline.” Astellas is on the hunt for “synergistic assets” that will already be “moderately derisked.” The ultimate goal is to hit “record-high revenue” in the mid-2030s.
While the company didn’t offer any clues as to which specific meds it may already have in its sights, Astellas did confirm in the strategy documents that these would typically be in “pre-defined therapeutic areas/modalities to add value through our established capabilities.”
Beyond licensing individual drugs, Astellas didn’t rule out a “large-scale asset/company acquisition” as a way to protect its near-term revenue. In this case, a deal would likely “focus on near-launch or marketed assets,” the pharma explained.
However, a high-value acquisition of this nature—which the company described as “rescue BD” —would not be “pursued by default.”
Even with its existing clinical-stage pipeline, Astellas is hoping to reap 1 trillion yen ($6 billion) in combined potential revenue by the mid-2030s. The most advanced of these assets is the KRAS G12D-targeting protein degrader setidegrasib, which is in phase 3 studies for both first-line pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and second-line non‑small cell lung cancer.
Beyond setidegrasib are the likes of ASP2138, an LDN18.2xCD3 bispecific T-cell engager being readied for a phase 3 study in gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, and ASP7317, a cell therapy being developed for geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration.
This morning’s multi-year plan follows a multi-year cost-optimization program called “sustainable margin transformation,” which Astellas launched in 2024. Through organizational restructuring, streamlining certain infrastructure and reducing investments in mature products, Astellas already saved about 11 billion yen in selling, general and administrative expenses during fiscal 2025. Ongoing cost-reduction efforts mean that the company has previously said it expects SG&A expenses to decrease by 7% to 800 billion yen in fiscal 2026.
But Astellas plans to go further still, alluding in this morning’s documents to “additional initiatives” required to reduce costs over the next four years. The new goal is to generate cumulative cost savings of 200 billion yen ($1.3 billion) from now until 2030.
Astellas didn't directly answer Fierce’s question about whether these initiatives are likely to involve laying off employees. Instead, a spokesperson pointed out that the strategy would involve a “robust prioritization to place additional emphasis on geographies, disease areas, and modalities in which Astellas has the strongest capabilities and growth potential.”
These plans also require “mindset shifts to focus on driving impact,” the spokesperson added.
While the company clearly decided more work was needed to prepare for the group-wide revenue decline once Xtandi falls off the patent cliff, the financial picture for fiscal year 2026 has been looking rosy. In its most recent earnings results, Astellas said it expects five strategic brands will deliver 130 billion yen in additional sales this year—which would represent 27% growth—and will therefore drive overall company growth by 4% year over year.
The five products are Pfizer-partnered antibody-drug conjugate Padcev, eye med Izervay, CLDN18.2 cancer drug Vyloy, menopause therapy Veozah and leukemia treatment Xospata.
This group of drugs, which Astellas refers to as its “strategic brands,” plays a key role in the company’s latest strategy. The plan is for these meds to account for over 50% of Astellas’ revenue in 2030, compared to around 23% in 2025.
Doubling the sales of these therapies in the next few years will require a successful readout of an ongoing phase 3 trial for Padcev in an additional type of bladder cancer, as well as launching a pre-filled syringe version of Izervay and marketing Vyloy in China, among other opportunities.
“Astellas is well-positioned to deliver strong performance and greater value faster for patients through 2030 and beyond,” Astellas CEO Naoki Okamura said in a statement.
“With Strategic Brands driving momentum and a pipeline built on new targets, advanced modalities and precision approaches, we are primed to achieve record-high revenue in the mid-2030s—driven by pipeline-led growth—while addressing areas of high unmet medical need,” Okamura added.