Astellas has agreed to buy Agensys, a privately held U.S. biotech with a portfolio of novel cancer targets and monoclonal antibodies to match, in a deal worth up to $537 million, the firms announced Nov. 27.

The Japanese firm has agreed to pay $387 million up front and another $150 million in potential regulatory and developmental milestone payments to Agensys shareholders.

Santa Monica, Calif.-based Agensys will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Astellas' U.S. business, Astellas U.S. Holding. The deal is expected to close by the end of December.

The acquisition is part of a plan to "aggressively build up [Astellas'] antibody R&D capabilities," a component of the medium-term, five-year plan Astellas announced in October 2006.

The firm inked two licensing deals in March, both aimed at building biologics expertise. Under an agreement with Regeneron, Astellas has nonexclusive access to the Tarrytown, N.Y., firm's VelocImmune mAb discovery technology (¹ Also see "Astellas Signs License For Regeneron’s VelocImmune To Bolster Antibody Platform" - Pink Sheet, 30 March, 2007.).

The second licensing deal, with MorphoSys, a Frankfurt, Germany-based mAb company, includes access to a phage display library and a reciprocal agreement for MorphoSys to develop antibodies against targets provided by Astellas (² Also see "MorphoSys Gains Third Japanese Partner Through Astellas Deal" - Pink Sheet, 29 March, 2007.).

The Agensys purchase provides Astellas "access to expertise and assets in fully human monoclonal antibody technologies, proprietary target molecules in the cancer field, and a clinical candidate antibody pipeline," Astellas said. In addition, Agensys is expected to contribute proprietary small molecule oncology molecules to Astellas' in-house development program.

The firm's pipeline contains AGS-PSCA, an antibody in Phase Ib for prostate, pancreatic and bladder cancers, and several antibody candidates in late preclinical development.

Agensys develops proprietary targets using tumor tissues derived from patients. According to the company, it has discovered and validated 30 cancer targets to 14 cancer types, including prostate, kidney, bladder, colon, lung, ovarian and pancreatic cancers.

The firm then aims to generate fully human antibodies to those targets. Agensys entered a five-year partnership with Abgenix (since bought by Amgen) to generate human mAbs in transgenic mice for 25 targets using Abgenix's XenoMouse technology.

Agensys also has developed a series of proprietary, patient-derived xenograft mouse models to facilitate discovery of targets and validation of targets and products.

Finally, the company has a 10,000-sq.-ft. antibody manufacturing facility with capacity to produce mAbs for clinical trials through Phase I and early Phase II.

-Shirley Haley (s.haley@elsevier.com)

[Editor's note: Additional coverage of Asian markets is provided at ³ PharmAsia News, F-D-C Reports' new beta site for Asian biotech and pharmaceutical news. To register for complimentary e-mail updates, visit ⁴ www.pharmasianews.com.]

Astellas Advances Antibody R&amp;D Agenda With Agensys Purchase Worth Up To $537 Million

More from Archive

More from Pink Sheet

Astellas Advances Antibody R&D Agenda With Agensys Purchase Worth Up To $537 Million