BRIEF—Takeda in NASH deal with HemoShear

Takeda Pharmaceutical and privately-held US biotech HemoShear Therapeutics have announced a partnership to discover and develop novel therapeutics for liver diseases, including nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

The Japanese pharma major will receive exclusive access to HemoShear’s proprietary disease modeling platform, REVEAL-Tx, which Takeda sees as an “integral in our overall liver disease strategy that focuses on a ‘human first’ approach to the identification and validation of novel targets in NASH and other liver diseases,” head of the GI drug discovery unit, Gareth Hicks, said.

HemoShear will receive upfront payments and research and development funding as well as milestone payments of potentially $470 million and royalties.