Astellas Pharma acquires Nanna Therapeutics

Tokyo, Cambridge: Astellas Pharma Inc. and Nanna Therapeutics Limited have announced that Astellas has acquired Nanna, a biotech company headquartered in the United Kingdom, that is focused on addressing age-related diseases with high unmet medical need including mitochondria-related diseases. Astellas, through its subsidiary in the United Kingdom, Astellas Pharma Europe Ltd., has purchased all of the issued share capital of Nanna through execution of a Share Purchase Agreement.

Adding Nanna's proprietary and advanced screening platform with new DNA-encoded chemical libraries (DELs) technology significantly bolsters Astellas' early-stage drug development capabilities. Nanna's unique capabilities enable the creation and rapid testing of more diverse chemical libraries. The approach enables phenotype-based screening which is not feasible with conventional DELs. It can also be applied to various assay systems including cell-based assays utilizing patient-derived cells, potentially enabling screens that are tailored to specific disease biology.

"We believe this acquisition will enable us to create new solutions that address unmet medical needs by combining Nanna's unique technology platform with our research and development capabilities related to mitochondrial diseases," said Kenji Yasukawa, Ph.D., President and CEO, Astellas. "Nanna's platform will accelerate Astellas' drug discovery research in mitochondria-related biology areas such as autophagy and mitophagy, as well as other research areas such as aging/senescence and immunometabolism."

"We are focused on developing innovative modulators of mitochondria. This critical organelle, the centre of energy production and signalling in almost every cell, is implicated in numerous human diseases" said David Williams, Ph.D., CEO, Nanna.

"We are excited to become part of Astellas, which has a strong record of research and development in mitochondrial biology, and we strive to help expand on these achievements."

Consideration for the acquisition, £12 million, was paid upon closing of the acquisition, and Nanna became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Astellas. In addition to this payment, Nanna's shareholders are eligible to receive potential future development milestone payments of up to £57.5 million.

The impact of this transaction on Astellas' financial results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, is expected to be immaterial.

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