Last checked at 
* Hasegawa wants Weber to come up with ideas in 3-6 months
* Major acquisitions not on cards, small bolt-ons possible
* Takeda pipeline weakened by diabetes drug setback in Dec
By Ben Hirschler
DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Takeda Pharmaceutical, one of Asia's biggest drugmakers, expects theappointment of a foreign outsider as its planned next chiefexecutive will take the 230-year-old Japanese group to the nextlevel in going global.
Last month's decision to name Christophe Weber, a Frenchmanwho has never worked for Takeda, as chief operating officer andthe intended successor to Yasuchika Hasegawa was seen as a boldmove in an industry that has often looked inward in the past.
Yet Hasegawa, who will remain chairman, said the move wasjust a logical extension of the company's strategy.
"Our near-term strategy is to transform Takeda into a trulyglobally competitive company in every facet of its business.It's very simple. To make that happen we need a global standardof talent in each key position," he told Reuters on thesidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
In the past, Takeda has reached outside its domestic marketwith some large deals, such as the acquisition of cancerspecialist Millennium and a deal to buy Nycomed to boost itsfootprint in emerging markets.
Hasegawa said the time for such sizeable deals was "nowover", although Takeda could look at small bolt-on buys intargeted areas.
Weber is joining from GlaxoSmithKline in April andHasegawa said he wanted him to come up with ideas for changingTakeda "within three to six months".
Weber is not the first non-Japanese executive to take a toppost at a Japanese company, but his position is unusual in thatunlike Carlos Ghosn at Renault-Nissan orHoward Stringer at Sony he does not come from withinthe group.
"He's parachuting into our organisation which with 230 yearsof history has never had a non-Japanese top executive. I wanthim to take time to look into the organisation and find out theshortfalls and prioritise them," Hasegawa said.
"He needs to set aggressive but achievable targets."
Weber is joining at a testing time, since confidence inTakeda's pipeline of new drugs has been hit following thefailure of a late-stage experimental diabetes drug in Decemberafter it was linked to liver problems.
Hasegawa acknowledged the scrapping of the medicine was asetback but he said the loss would not derail plans to growsales at a mid-single digit percentage rate, while alsoexpanding operating margins.
"We are right on track even though we have lost a late-stagecompound," he said.
The group is pinning its hopes on a number of other newproducts, including an antidepressant developed with Denmark'sLundbeck, a treatment for ulcerative colitis, a newanti-obesity pill licensed from Orexigen and afollow-on to its successful cancer drug Velcade.
