Take­da, Fra­zier cre­ate Phath­om Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals to spur de­vel­op­ment of GI drug vono­prazan in $140M play

With four­teen gas­troen­terol­o­gy as­sets in its pipeline, Take­da $TAK has its hands full. The com­pa­ny — new­ly merged with Shire — is thus farm­ing out the ex-Japan de­vel­op­ment of its acid-fight­er Vono­prazan to a com­pa­ny it has cre­at­ed with the ven­ture part­ners at Fra­zier: Phath­om Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Vono­prazan is a P-CAB — a class of drugs that blocks the potas­si­um-bind­ing site of gas­tric hy­dro­gen potas­si­um AT­Pase (al­so known as the pro­ton pump), which is the en­zyme large­ly re­spon­si­ble for acid­i­fi­ca­tion of the stom­ach — dis­cov­ered and de­vel­oped by Take­da. The drug — which is de­signed to over­come many of the per­ceived weak­ness­es of tra­di­tion­al pro­ton pump in­hibitor ther­a­py (such as short half-life, re­quir­ing 3–5 cy­cles of ad­min­is­tra­tion be­fore achiev­ing full ef­fect) — was ap­proved in 2015 by Japan­ese reg­u­la­tors for var­i­ous GI con­di­tions in­clud­ing gas­tric and duo­de­nal ul­cers as well as H. py­lori in­fec­tions.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER