Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, a leading Japanese pharmaceutical company, has announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement to acquire US-based biotechnology firm Jnana Therapeutics Inc. Upon completion of the deal, Jnana will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Otsuka, with the transaction valued at $800 million in upfront payment to Jnana shareholders. Additionally, Otsuka has committed to potential milestone payments of up to $325 million tied to development and regulatory achievements, with an expected closing in the third quarter of Otsuka’s fiscal year 2024.
The acquisition is driven by Otsuka’s interest in Jnana’s cutting-edge drug discovery platform, RAPID, a next-generation chemoproteomics platform that specializes in identifying medicines for targets that are well-validated but have been difficult to drug. This technology is capable of advancing drug development for a spectrum of challenging targets, including solute carriers (SLCs), transcription factors, and signaling scaffold proteins.
The strategic fit between Jnana’s innovative approach and Otsuka’s existing drug discovery methods, particularly those employed by its UK subsidiary Astex Pharmaceuticals, is expected to yield significant synergies. Furthermore, the deal will grant Otsuka control over Jnana’s pipeline, headlined by JNT-517, a first-in-class allosteric small molecule inhibitor of SLC6A19, which has completed a Phase Ib/II study for the treatment of phenylketonuria (PKU), a rare genetic disorder.- Flcube.com
