(James. J. Caras, National Science Foundation)
Takeda Pharmaceuticals, in Osaka, Japan, will acquire the drug discovery company Envoy Therapeutics in Jupiter, Florida for $140 million. Takeda says the merger will mean moving Envoy’s management and scientific staff to Takeda’s San Diego offices after March 2013.
Envoy was founded by biophysicist and 2000 Nobel prize winner Paul Greengard, and Rockefeller University colleague molecular biologist Nathaniel Heintz. The company’s technology is based on research by Greengard and Heintz and uses genetically engineered messenger RNA from bacterial artificial chromosomes to generate proteins that enable precise specification of drug targets.
Takeda is no stranger to Envoy Therapeutics, providing part of Envoy’s series A funding — the first round of venture financing after initial start-up — in 2009. In 2010, Takeda licensed Envoy’s technology in a $5.25 million deal to identify proteins expressed in specific brain cells known to be affected in patients with schizophrenia.
The deal gives Takeda full ownership of Envoy’s drug discovery technology including its materials, datasets, and analysis techniques for the identification of drug targets. Takeda also gets Envoy’s preclinical research on Parkinson’s disease and cognitive impairment from schizophrenia. Takeda will pay a total of $140 million in an upfront payment and preclinical research milestone payments.
Takeda says it will continue operating Envoy in Jupiter, Florida through March 2013. After then, Takeda plans to transfer most of the Envoy scientific staff and management team to San Diego, California to become part of Takeda’s Pharmaceuticals Research Division.
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