Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc., a company that develops products for rare and ultra-rare diseases, recently announced a strategic partnership for developing and commercializing therapies.
“This broad collaboration provides Ultragenyx with a product opportunity that is approaching clinical-stage development as well as a potential continued source of new product candidates that will help us achieve our goal of bringing a new therapy into the clinic every one to two years,” Ultragenyx CEO Emil Kakkis said. “Takeda has an impressive early pipeline of therapies with potential across a number of rare genetic diseases, and we are pleased that Takeda has chosen to partner with us to bring these therapies to patients with rare diseases that have few or no treatment options.”
The partnership will begin with Takeda's licensing one preclinical product candidate to Ultragenyx, which will be able to co-develop and co-commercialize it for additional therapeutic uses. Ultragenyx will have the option -- over the next five years -- to license an additional five more product candidates.
"Ultragenyx is a rapidly emerging rare disease company, led by a highly experienced and successful management team," Takeda Chief Medical and Scientific Officer Andrew Plump said. “This partnership provides Takeda access to Ultragenyx’s strong, patient-centric development and regulatory capabilities in the rare disease space, and could create significant value for both companies by delivering important new therapies to patients.”
