After divorcing Denali Therapeutics earlier this month, Takeda is now splitting up with Veritas In Silico, pulling back from a partnership that advanced novel small-molecule drugs targeting mRNA.
Takeda is ending its engagement with Veritas In Silico, continuing a recent pattern of the Japanese pharma trimming its roster of collaborators.
The Veritas In Silico (VIS) partnership, which aimed to advance novel small-molecule drugs targeting mRNA, officially ended on April 13, according to a news release that same day. “While the Research had yielded certain results to date, following discussions with Takeda and VIS, the Research shall be terminated amicably,” the biotech said, though it did not provide specific reasons for the termination.
Takeda and VIS will continue to discuss the potential future applications of the findings generated from the partnership, according to the press announcement.
“While we would refrain from commenting on the details of individual research activities, we believe that the approximately three years of joint drug discovery research to date have provided us concrete learnings,” a Takeda spokesperson told Fierce Biotech on Tuesday, confirming that the split was VIS had been amicable.
Takeda and VIS linked up in June 2023. Details of their arrangement are scarce. Financial terms were undisclosed and the companies did not specify what indications they planned to work on.
Takeda’s decision to walk away from VIS comes just over a week after it broke up with Denali Therapeutics, handing back the rights to a brain-penetrant protein replacement therapy for frontotemporal dementia. The asset, dubbed DNL593, is in a Phase 1/2 study that has wrapped up enrollment with 40 patients, Denali said at the time.
The biotech will continue to advance DNL593 independently, with initial data expected before year-end, CEO Ryan Watts said in an April 3 news release.
In addition, Takeda pulled back from cell therapy development last October, laying off 137 employees and moving to offload its platform to an unnamed external partner. The pharma over the years had built up its cell therapy capabilities, including acquiring Adaptate Biotherapeutics and GammaDelta, as well as partnering with Immusoft and Alloy Therapeutics.
Takeda hasn’t just been cutting off collaborators, however; it’s also been adding them. The same month as its cell therapy exit, the Japanese pharma put up to $11.4 billion on the line to work with China’s Innovent on three next-generation antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for various cancers. A week earlier, Takeda entered into a multi-year engagement with Nabla Bio to use the biotech’s AI engine to fill out its early-stage pipeline. Takeda allotted more than $1 billion for that partnership.
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