Haruhiko Hirate is the Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Officer at Takeda. He has held the positions of Corporate Officer, Senior Vice President and Head of North Asia at Takeda since 2010 and became Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Officer in October 2014.

Prior to joining Takeda, Mr. Hirate held the position of Representative Senior Managing Director at GlaxoSmithKline in Japan and, before that, Representative Director and President of Banyu Pharmaceuticals, the Japanese subsidiary of Merck & Co.

He joined Banyu Pharmaceuticals in 2004 from his role as Senior Vice President at Merck & Co, based in New Jersey, USA. He had previously held the position of Representative Director and President at Roche Diagnostics based in Japan and, before that, Asia Pacific Regional President of Draeger.

Mr. Hirate began his career with Nissei Sangyo, a subsidiary of Hitachi, in 1980. During his career at Hitachi group companies, he lived about 5 years in Germany mainly working with former Boehringer Manheim, and series of overseas projects in USA and Asia between 1980 and 1996.

Well respected in the Japanese pharmaceutical industry, Mr. Hirate served as Director at the Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Associations of Japan (FPMAJ), and Chairman of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Japan. Since 2012, he became a member of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives. In 2014, he became Chairman of the International Affairs Committee at the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (JPMA).

He graduated from Keio University in Japan with a B.A. degree in Economics in 1980.