Departures of note

Yasuchika Hasegawa was a prominent Japanese business leader who served as president of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. After graduating from Waseda University, he joined Takeda in 1970 and rose to become president in 2003. During his tenure he drove the company's globalization, acquiring American biotech ventures and a major Swiss pharmaceutical firm in pursuit of growth through new markets. In 2014 he handed the presidency to a foreign executive recruited from a British pharmaceutical major and moved to become chairman. From 2011 to 2015 he served as representative director of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai). He also served as a private-sector member of the Industrial Competitiveness Council under the second Abe administration, where he proposed relaxing labor regulations to allow wages to be tied to results rather than hours worked. He died on July 3, 2026, at the age of 80.