Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Jnana Therapeutics Inc., for $800 million, as well as up to an additional $325 million in development and regulatory milestones. Jnana will become a wholly owned subsidiary through Otsuka’s subsidiary, Otsuka America, Inc. The acquisition is expected to be completed in fiscal 3Q24, subject to customary closing conditions.
 
Jnana’s drug discovery approach is enabled by RAPID – the company’s next-generation chemoproteomics platform designed to discover medicines for highly validated but challenging-to-drug targets. The platform leverages a high-throughput, binding-based screening approach that is inherently flexible, enabling the discovery of binding sites across the surface of a target protein and the identification of small molecules that elicit diverse pharmacologies. 
 
Jnana pursues drug discovery based on concepts that are complementary to those of Astex Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Otsuka based in Cambridge, UK.
 
Jnana has built a unique competitive position by concentrating on PKU, a rare inherited metabolic disorder in which phenylalanine accumulates to abnormally high levels in the blood, and autoimmune diseases, where small molecule drug discovery has been challenging. Jnana’s technology successfully generated JNT-517, an allosteric small molecule inhibitor of SLC6A19, an SLC (solute carrier) that regulates amino acid reabsorption in the kidney. JNT-517 has the potential to become a first-in-class oral treatment for PKU, as it has been shown to be effective, well-tolerated, and safe in a Phase 1b/2 study. 
 
In the autoimmune disease field, the company is pursuing small molecule drug discovery for highly validated, but challenging-to-drug, targets such as interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3), a master transcription factor for the production of interferon.
 
Makoto Inoue, president and representative director of Otsuka Pharmaceutical said, “I am gratified that Otsuka has entered into an agreement with Jnana. The addition of Jnana’s drug discovery technology and small molecule pipeline in PKU and autoimmune diseases will strengthen our R&D in the Boston area of the U.S., one of the most important bioclusters in the world, and in a combined form will have a synergistic effect on Otsuka Pharmaceutical’s global expansion.”
 
Joanne Kotz, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Jnana, said, “This transaction recognizes the Jnana team’s accomplishments since the founding of the company, which include creating RAPID – a world-class small molecule drug discovery platform. Leveraging our platform, the team discovered JNT-517, a potential first-in-class oral medicine for the treatment of PKU, and has demonstrated positive clinical proof of concept for JNT-517 in individuals with PKU.”