Tokyo-headquartered pharmaceutical firm Astellas has acquired Nanna, a biotech company based in Cambridge.
Nanna is focused on addressing age-related diseases with high unmet medical need including mitochondria-related diseases.
Consideration for the acquisition, £12 million, was paid upon closing of the acquisition, and Nanna became a wholly owned subsidiary of Astellas.
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.
The move adds Nanna’s proprietary screening platform with new DNA technology to Astellas’ early stage drug development capabilities.
“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.”
David Williams, Ph.D., CEO at Nanna added: “We are focused on developing innovative modulators of mitochondria. This critical organelle, the center of energy production and signaling in almost every cell, is implicated in numerous human diseases” said
“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.”