Daiichi Sankyo Acquires U3 Pharma

Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) will acquire U3 Pharma AG (Martinsried, Germany), a German biotechnology company focusing on research into antibodies for the treatment of cancer. Daiichi Sankyo will purchase 100% of the stock and make a one-time payment of $235 million for the company.

U3 Pharma’s pipeline of novel targeted therapeutics includes programs focusing on fully human antibodies as potential therapies for breast, lung, and colorectal cancers, among others. The company’s lead product, which is being co-developed with Amgen, is U3-1287 (AMG 888), a fully human anti-HER3 monoclonal antibody to inhibit oncogenic signaling and tumor proliferation. The companies intend to initiate clinical development of this compound this year.