Takeda Pharmaceutical said Julie Kim took over as representative director, president and CEO on June 24, the final step in a leadership transition the company first outlined in January 2025. The appointment followed Takeda's annual general meeting of shareholders in Osaka, where investors elected Kim as an internal director. Christophe Weber, who had led the company for roughly a decade, retired from Takeda and its board the same day.
The company announced on Jan. 30, 2025 that its board had unanimously chosen Kim to succeed Weber, setting up an unusually long, roughly 18-month transition. Weber, a French executive, had been Takeda's first non-Japanese chief executive and oversaw the company's transformation into a global drugmaker, including the roughly $59 billion acquisition of Ireland's Shire in 2019.
Who Julie Kim is
Kim joined Takeda through that Shire deal. According to her company biography, she has since held roles of increasing scope, including president of the Plasma-Derived Therapies Business Unit and, since April 2022, president of the U.S. Business Unit — Takeda's largest market. Before Takeda, she worked at Baxter, Baxalta and Shire, with assignments spanning the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Hong Kong and the United States. She holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School.
Kim's appointment carries a notable distinction. Multiple outlets, including Korea Biomedical Review, described her as the first Korean American to lead a global pharmaceutical company.
The business she inherits
She takes over a company of substantial scale but real near-term pressure. Takeda is Japan's largest pharmaceutical company by revenue, reporting full-year sales of about 4.5 trillion yen, roughly $28 billion, in its most recent fiscal year — a slight decline, according to Fierce Pharma. The drop reflects what the industry calls a patent cliff: the loss of exclusivity on the attention-deficit drug Vyvanse, where generic competition cut sales sharply over the year.
To offset those declines, Takeda has leaned on Entyvio, its top-selling treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, which generated about $4.9 billion over nine months. The company has also pointed investors toward a clutch of six mid- and late-stage pipeline candidates that it estimates could eventually deliver combined peak annual sales of $10 billion to $20 billion. Those figures are company projections, not realized results. Takeda has paired the pipeline push with cost cuts, including a restructuring program involving roughly 4,500 job reductions, Fierce Pharma reported.
The handover was telegraphed well in advance, a contrast to more abrupt executive changes elsewhere in the industry. Whether Kim's U.S. commercial background translates into a smooth start atop an Osaka-based, globally listed company will become clearer as Takeda reports results under her leadership.
