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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