Genesis 2013: Astex Pharma's journey from biotech start-up to $886m success story

16 December 2013

A biotech company’s dream 14-year journey from small start-up to an $886 million takeover bid provided inspiration to UK life science companies at the Genesis 2013 conference in London on Thursday. Delegates heard about the process which saw UK biotech firm Astex Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ASTX) bought by Japanese drugmaker Otsuka (TYO: 4768) in September.

Merger with SuperGen

Chief executive Harren Jhoti co-founded Astex Pharma, formerly Astex Therapeutics, in 1999. However, it wasn’t always an easy ride and at one point the company had just three months’ worth of money in the bank. In 2007 the company needed money desperately and looked at completing an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the stock market in London. After several meetings with bankers, and the timing with the global financial crisis in 2008, they realized the appetite wasn’t there and they needed to take the company into the next stage of development.

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