Takeda has bought UW spinout PvP Biologics, three years after acquiring an option to buy it in return for $35m in financing.
PvP Biologics, a US-based coeliac disease drug developer spun out of University of Washington (UW), was acquired by pharmaceutical firm Takeda yesterday in a deal sized at up to $330m.
PvP was founded in 2011 out of a project submitted for UW’s Genetically Engineered Machine contest that involved it using software designed by professor of biochemistry David Baker to find an enzyme able to break down gluten in the stomach before it damages the intestine.
The enzyme, KumaMax, was developed by a team headed by PvP’s co-founder and chief scientific officer Ingrid Swanson Pultz, also part of UW’s biochemistry department. It forms the basis of PvP’s lead drug candidate, TAK-062.
TAK-062 recently successfully passed through a phase 1 proof-of-mechanism study for coeliac disease, an autoimmune condition where gluten consumed by a patient ends up harming their intestine.
Takeda supplied $35m in financing for PvP through…
