CAMBRIDGE — Takeda Oncology’s multiple myeloma treatment Velcade achieved blockbuster status in the United States last year, becoming one of only 10 cancer drugs ever to generate US sales of more than $1 billion a year.
Now the company is working on a new drug that will be easier for patients to take than Velcade.
The local research lab of Takeda, formerly known as Millennium Pharmaceuticals, developed the first oral proteasome inhibitor to treat multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells, and is preparing to report data from late-stage clinical trials. The new drug, called ixazomib, is in pill form; Velcade has to be injected.
If all goes well, the company plans to apply for US and European approval of ixazomib later this year.
“When you have a simpler, potentially safer treatment than Velcade, it’s more convenient for patients,” Christophe Bianchi, president of Takeda’s global oncology business unit, said in an interview. “The [pill] will transform the market, we believe, because it doesn’t require patients to visit a clinic.”
Ixazomib, like Velcade, works in cancer cells by blocking proteasome, a cell switch that breaks down proteins. In cancer cells, the proteins are produced rapidly. So inhibiting the proteasome allows so many proteins to accumulate that the cancer cells die.
Many physicians prescribe Velcade as part of a three-drug cocktail that includes two pills. So patients today have to travel to clinics only for the Velcade injection. If regulators approve ixazomib, patients will be able to take the entire cocktail at home, swallowing ixazomib once a week for three weeks and skipping the fourth week before repeating the regimen.
While ixazomib threatens sales of Velcade, Takeda stands to benefit from switching to the new drug. Takeda sells Velcade only in the United States, but has licensed marketing rights in other countries to Johnson & Johnson.
Bianchi said Takeda plans to establish a global commercial sales force for ixazomib. So while the company will compete with itself domestically, sales of ixazomib around the world would come at the expense of Johnson & Johnson.
“The new drug cannibalizes Velcade but it could provide more revenue for Takeda in the long run,” said biotechnology analyst Howard Liang, managing director at health care investment bank Leerink Partners. “Takeda has worldwide marketing rights for ixazomib, and it might be better tolerated by patients so they can take it longer. This could be a meaningful alternative.”
Bianchi, 53, began working in Millennium in 2006, two years before Japanese drug maker Takeda Pharmaceuticals Co. paid nearly $9 billion for the Cambridge biotech. He took over in September as head of the oncology unit, which accounts for about a third of Takeda’s research budget.
Three months later, the company notified employees that it would gradually eliminate the Millennium name. A new research and office building under construction at 300 Massachusetts Ave., which is set to open next March, will be the first to be branded with the Takeda Oncology name.
The company plans to move about 500 employees into the building next year, but it will eventually house about 600.
Takeda will be keeping three other buildings on Landsdowne Street, a block away, but abandoning parts of two buildings on nearby Sidney Street.
Bianchi, whose business unit includes operations in Japan, Europe, Brazil, and Indonesia that were already part of Takeda, said the Millennium name had become confusing.
“Despite the fact that it was a great name, we felt it was time to make a change,” he said. “The spirit of the company is not going to change. The culture of the company is not going to change.”
While many had feared that the acquisition would diminish the company’s local presence, Bianchi said Takeda continues to grow in Cambridge. It currently employs about 1,150 people here, including about 200 in its commercial business and the rest in research and general administration. Andrew Plump, who was named Takeda’s global head of research and development in December, is also based in Cambridge.
Bianchi said Takeda is considering moving other therapeutic research programs to Cambridge over the coming year, but no firm decisions have been made. Like other drug makers attracted to the Boston area, Takeda hopes to rely more on “external research” through collaborations with biotechs and academic researchers, he said.
“Boston-Cambridge is the hub of health care, it’s the hub of medical care, it’s the hub of venture capital investment,” he said.
While he has worked in the United States for 25 years, Bianchi was born in Belgium and raised in France. His father was of Italian descent, and he works for a Japanese company that last month named another French national, Christophe Weber, as its first non-Japanese chief executive.
“The industry is becoming global,” Bianchi said. “The challenge that patients with cancer face is global. Our enemy is really an enemy without borders and we have to be borderless to fight it.”
Robert Weisman can be reached at robert.weisman@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeRobW.