Message from the President
Top Message
"Driving Sustainable Value Through Growth Investment and Capital Efficiency"
President, Representative Director
I am committed to fulfilling my duties as the new President and Representative Director. I will continue working hard to enhance corporate value by contributing to the improvement of people’s health and progress in society as we diligently safeguard our invaluable foundation and continue to uphold the philosophy that extends back to our founding.
The environment surrounding the pharmaceutical industry is entering an unprecedented era of transformation. To respond to these environmental changes, in 2021, we established ASKA Pharmaceutical Holdings and launched Medium-Term Management Plan 2025.
The fiscal year ended March 31, 2025 (FY2024) marked the fourth year of Medium-Term Management Plan 2025. Driven in part by new products, our business performance built on the previous year’s strengths, with net sales reaching a record high of ¥64.1 billion. Due to higher R&D costs, associated with more active drug discovery research and progress in clinical trials, operating profit declined 18.0% year on year to ¥5.3 billion. Since adopting a holdings structure, revenue has grown for four consecutive years, or six consecutive years if we include results under the previous structure.
As for strengthening shareholder returns, we have continued to maintain stable dividends and now target a consolidated dividend payout ratio of 30% since we adopted a performance-linked profit distribution system for dividends in FY2024. Our dividend forecast for FY2025 includes annual dividends per share of ¥55 and a consolidated payout ratio of 30%.
Going forward, we will continue our proactive efforts to further enhance shareholder returns. We appreciate the continued understanding and support of our shareholders.
Sohta Yamaguchi
President, Representative Director
(As of June 24, 2025)
Currently, the Group is implementing growth strategies geared toward realizing our goal of becoming a total healthcare company with a strong foundation as a specialty pharma company. We believe that the Group already has consolidated a significant presence as a specialty pharma company in the domestic market, particularly in the Ob/Gyn field. Looking ahead, we seek to further solidify that presence while also extending our reach beyond Japan to include the global market, beginning with Asia. Toward our goal of becoming a total healthcare company, we also aim to evolve into a company whose scope runs beyond offering pharmaceuticals, also covering prevention, testing and diagnostics, treatment, and prognosis.
In executing our growth strategies, our mission as executives is to maintain sound management while also advancing the Company’s business over the medium to long term. To that end, we must not only strengthen our defenses with a view to securing profits in the near term, but also maintain an aggressive stance toward future business expansion. In the core pharmaceutical business, the key to growth is continuously bringing new drugs to market, as not only are existing drugs affected by annual NHI drug price revisions, but also their sales tend to fall away once they go over their respective patent cliffs,1 as this paves the way for being replaced by generic equivalents. At the same time, though, R&D investment in new drugs is time-consuming and carries with it considerable risk. It can take a decade or more for a drug discovery seed to reach the market, and the probability of doing so is not necessarily high. To ensure that ASKA Pharmaceutical consistently discovers new drugs that address unmet medical needs and parlays this into sustainable growth, it is crucial that each and every employee embraces risk and challenge with a full understanding of this situation. In addition to increasing opportunities for communication with employees, as a management team we are also active in spreading this message.
We appreciate your continued understanding and support of the Group.
Atsushi Maruo
Senior Managing Member of the Board of Directors,
Representative Director
(As of September 30, 2024)