Pharma

Pharmaceutical co. with gout treatment acquired by Takeda in $800M deal

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. has agreed to acquire an East Coast pharmaceutical firm with a gout […]

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. has agreed to acquire an East Coast pharmaceutical firm with a gout treatment as its lead drug in a deal valued at more than $800 million.

Takeda said it made the deal to bolster its gout treatment portfolio.

Takeda is one of the largest pharmaceuticals companies in Asia and is acquiring URL Pharmaceuticals through its U.S. division headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois. It will provide additional payments to URL Pharmaceuticals if certain milestones are reached, according to a company statement.

URL Pharmaceuticals, a Philadelphia-based company, is a 66 year old business that spent much of its life as a generic pharmaceutical producer. But it forged ahead with a branded division, AR Scientific, in the 21st century. In 2009, it developed a drug to treat gout and minimize flare ups called Colcrys that produced net sales of $400 million in 2011 and is expected to grow over time, according to the statement.

Gout is an arthritic condition in which increased levels of uric acid in the blood crystallize and are deposited in the joints, tendons and surrounding tissue. It affects an estimated 3 million to 5 million people, particularly adult men in the U.S, but has become more common in countries such as China.

URL’s malaria treatment, Qualaquin, developed in 2006, was its first internally developed product, according to URL’s website.

The company has also developed technologies to improve drug development such as Prism and Nanoburst. Prism is designed to identify safety improvements and improve patient outcomes by looking at a drug’s metabolic pathway. NanoBurst is a nanoparticle drug delivery technology to boost the bioavailability of poorly soluble pharmaceutical compounds. Bioavailability is the rate at which a drug reaches systemic circulation.

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