News

TOKYO October 30, 2020 - Astellas Pharma Inc. (TSE: 4503, President and CEO: Kenji Yasukawa, Ph.D., “Astellas”) announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Iota Biosciences, Inc. (“iota”), a start-up company focused on the bioelectronics field, located in Berkeley, California, and iota has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Astellas as of U.S. Pacific Time October 29, 2020.

Under the Merger Agreement executed between Astellas and iota shareholders, Astellas paid approximately US$127.5 million to acquire all of the outstanding equity in iota that was not previously held by Astellas (Astellas through a U.S. subsidiary, was an investor in iota through its previous Series A Preferred Stock offering). In addition, iota’s former shareholders (other than Astellas) will be eligible to receive additional payments of up to a total of approximately US$176.5 million upon achievement of predetermined milestones by iota within certain timeframes after completion of the transaction.

Astellas is also committing to spend a total of US$125 million over the next five years to fuel iota’s aggressive expansion.

This acquisition is expected to accelerate Astellas’ Rx+® business not only by expediting the Rx+® projects previously covered under the Research and Development Agreement signed between the parties in August 2019 but also by allowing exploration of other applications of iota’s unique bioelectronics technology for new target diseases and developing new technologies.

At this point, Astellas intends to maintain the organization in California and to retain the iota Biosciences name.

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