Tanabe Pharma announced on July 8 a deal to sell its Japanese manufacturing plants to Towa Pharmaceutical, shifting toward an outsourced production model following its acquisition by Bain Capital. The agreement involves the sale of Tanabe’s manufacturing subsidiary, including the Onoda and Yoshitomi plants, as well as the transfer of 17 active ingredients to Towa.
Previously known as Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, the company has historically produced medicines at in-house facilities. After being acquired by Bain for $3.3 billion, Tanabe is now focusing on research and development and business development activities. The company said in a July 3 press release that selling the facilities will allow its manufacturing operation “to fully leverage the technical capabilities and expertise it has cultivated to date and achieve further growth.”
Tanabe plans to collaborate with Towa during the transition period to ensure a stable supply of products until completion of the transfer. Towa currently operates three plants in Japan—in Osaka, Okayama, and Yamagata—with a combined capacity of 17.5 billion tablets annually, according to its website. It also runs an injectable production plant with a quake-absorbing structure at Yamagata and owns a facility in Spain.
Towa intends to expand production capacity at the newly acquired sites once the deal closes, which is scheduled for late November. This expansion aims to increase total output capacity from 24 billion tablets by 2031 up to more than 30 billion tablets by 2037.
The financial terms of this transaction remain private but mark Tanabe’s full exit from internal drug production—a process that began over a decade ago when it sold other facilities such as Ashikaga (to CMIC) in 2013 and started transferring Kashima (to Sawai Pharmaceutical) in 2014. After these changes, only Onoda and Yoshitomi remained under Tanabe’s control within Japan; subsidiaries continue operating manufacturing sites elsewhere in Asia.
Following completion of this deal, Towa will take over responsibility for producing several Tanabe drugs including Urso, Depas, and brotizolam at Onoda and Yoshitomi under new contracts.
