[1] The intention of the joint venture was to get products that Takeda had discovered developed, approved, and marketed in the US and Canada.
[1] These efforts were supported by the Japanese government at the time to help the national economy compete in higher technology, as countries like South Korea, Taiwan were beginning to catch up with Japan in commodity production.
[4] In 2001, the US Department of Justice, states attorneys general, and TAP Pharmaceutical Products settled criminal and civil charges against TAP related to federal and state medicare fraud and illegal marketing of the drug leuprorelin.
[6] The case arose under the False Claims Act with claims filed by Douglas Durand, a former TAP vice president of sales, and Joseph Gerstein, a doctor at Tufts University's HMO practice.
[8] Abbott and Takeda agreed to end the partnership in 2008, with Abbott keeping the rights to leuprorelin, which had sales in 2007 of $600 million and a patent expiring in 2015 and the approximately 300 employees who worked on the product, and Takeda keeping the rights to lansoprazole, which had sales of $2.3 billion in 2007 but was facing imminent generic competition, along with 800 employees in the U.S. and all the drugs in the TAP pipeline.