
Otsuka buys Astex for $866 million
pharmafile | September 6, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Astex, Lundbeck, Onyx, Otsuka
Otsuka Pharmaceutical is to buy UK-based Astex Pharmaceuticals in a deal that will see the Tokyo-based firm shelling out $866 million.
Astex whose HQ is in Cambridge, specialises in oncology and conditions of the central nervous system.
The acquisition follows a well-worn path: large pharma company buying a smaller biotech in order to get its hands on assets it believes will generate revenue – two recent examples being Amgen buying Onyx and AstraZeneca snapping up Amplimmune.
In this case, Otsuka thinks that by marrying its R&D strength in CNS with Astex’s fragment-based drug discovery technology, called PYRAMID, it will be able to find more treatments with new ways of working.
This would be useful – not least because the patent on Otsuka’s major antipsychotic treatment Abilify (aripiprazole), co-marketed with Bristol-Myers Squibb in the US and licensed to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, expires in a year’s time.
Two years ago Otsuka signed a deal with Lundbeck to sell and develop up to five CNS drugs, including a new formulation of Abilify – and the companies have had some success with an investigational Alzheimer’s treatment – but opening up completely new revenue streams with Astex would be a boon.
PYRAMID uses 3D structural analysis to see how target proteins bind with small molecules, and the hope is that it will allow quicker discovery and development of compounds for proteins associated with various diseases than has been possible previously with screening.
Astex’s biggest success so far has been Dacogen (decitabine), which is designed to treat myelodysplastic syndromes and elderly acute myeloid leukaemia. The carrot dangling for Otsuka is that this drug – sold by Eisai in North America and Janssen elsewhere – has created sales of approximately $280 million.
Added to that, four more compounds which had their genesis at Astex are currently in Phase II, including SGI-110 (a novel DNA methylation inhibitor) and AT13387, an inhibitor of heat shock protein 90 (HSP90).
Otsuka president Taro Iwamoto, said: “I hope that this acquisition of Astex will strengthen not only our cancer portfolio but also our drug discovery research in the CNS field, through the acquisition of Astex’s fragment-based drug design technology.”
Astex which was founded in 1991, has another four products currently in Phase I and also has a clinical R&D function in California.
Adam Hill
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