Astellas is shuttering Agensys, axing 220 jobs and moving away from ADC tech
A decade ago Agensys’ antibody work looked so appealing that Astellas happily paid $387 million in cash for it, reserving $150 million more in milestones. Today, though, the Japanese pharma company says it is shutting down the operation in Santa Monica, CA and moving on from antibody-drug conjugations, laying off all of the 220 staffers — unless they can land another job in the company.
Astellas made it clear that while the company is continuing to use some of the ADC tech and test drugs taken from the acquisition, it’s looking to other technologies for R&D.
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