Takeda Pharmaceutical ties-up with Tata Group's Advinus Therapeutics

Japan-headquartered Takeda Pharmaceutical has entered into a three-year pact with Advinus Therapeutics, a privately-held drug company promoted by the Tata Group, to initiate a three-year drug discovery collaboration.

A research-based pharmaceutical company headquartered in Pune, Advinus is focused on the discovery and development of proprietary new medicines for metabolic and inflammatory diseases and the alliance would focus efforts on novel targets for therapeutic areas including inflammation, central nervous system and metabolic diseases.

Advinus would lead the programmes for creation of optimal investigational new drug (IND) ready compounds for pre-defined targets.

The Tata group company would receive research funding of $36 million, $9 million in milestones leading to candidate selection, and would be eligible to receive future clinical and regulatory milestone payments of up to $45 million per product, as also royalties on product sales worldwide. Under the terms of the agreement, Takeda would receive worldwide commercial rights to drug candidates emerging from this alliance.

Paul Chapman, general managager of the pharmaceutical research division of Takeda Pharmaceutical said collaboration with Advinus was one of its initiatives to enhance its research productivity.

Rashmi Barbhaiya, chief executive officer of Advinus said, Advinus team was delighted that its biggest ever collaboration had been made possible by Takeda's visionary leadership, and their confidence in the founding principles that aim to create these new R&D (research and development) opportunities.