As part of the deal, Takeda agreed to buy Amgen’s unit in Japan, and will pay $200 million, plus as much as another $702 million tied to the development of about a dozen meds for treating such illnesses as cancer and arthritis, among other things. Amgen will also get $275 million for worldwide rights to one particular cancer drug, motesanib. (Here’s the Amgen statement).

The agreement immediately bolsters Takeda’s pipeline as it looks to compensate for declining sales of its Actos diabetes pill. For Amgen, the deal provides needed cash amid a cost-saving restructuring and lower revenues of its key anemia meds.

“Japan is a very complex market with specific regulatory requirements, which make it pretty expensive for a company not established in Japan to be able to launch and commercialize such a large group of products,” sDominique Monnet, Amgen’s vice president of global marketing, tells Bloomberg News. biotech decided to form a partnership with Takeda rather than sell rights to individual drugs with multiple companies, he adds.