
Takeda to buy LigoCyte for $60 million
pharmafile | October 8, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | LigoCyte, Takeda, norovirus
Takeda Pharmaceutical Company is to pay $60 million upfront to buy private US biopharma firm LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals in the next few weeks.
The incentives for the Japanese manufacturer are LigoCyte’s lead product, a Phase I/II vaccine to prevent norovirus gastroenteritis, and its proprietary virus-like particle platform (VLP) technology.
The firms say the vaccine is the only such product in clinical trials anywhere at present: norovirus is the most common cause of gastroenteritis and other food-derived illnesses in developed countries – but kills 200,000 people a year, most of them in the developing world.
Outbreaks are often in care facilities and in childcare settings, which is debilitating, disruptive and potentially dangerous, meaning disease burden will be a key point in any future application for approval with regulatory authorities.
The vaccine candidate has been shown to confer protection in an ‘initial human challenge trial’, Takeda says in a statement. LigoCyte’s VLP technology enables the production of vaccines designed to cover multiple strains of norovirus.
For Takeda’s vaccine business division, launched in January this year in a bid to establish the firm in the global vaccines market, the acquisition “is a major step forward”, said Rajeev Venkayya, its executive vice president.
The deal will be done by Takeda’s Takeda America Holdings, with LigoCyte’s operations remaining at Bozeman, Montana ‘for the foreseeable future’, the companies say.
Takeda insists that it intends to retain LigoCyte’s management team and staff, who will become part of the vaccine business division, with LigoCyte receiving undisclosed future ‘considerations’ depending on the success of development projects.
“LigoCyte is pleased to become a part of a leading research-based global pharmaceutical company with a commitment to vaccines and the resources to develop our pipeline,” said LigoCyte chief executive Donald Beeman.
The US company also has vaccines in preclinical development against respiratory syncytial virus, influenza and rotavirus.
Adam Hill
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