Maruho boosts US presence with Cutanea acquisition

Japan’s Maruho says it has acquired Cutanea Life Sciences (CLS), a privately held dermatology development company based in Villanova, Pennsylvania, USA. CLS will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Maruho.

Koichi Takagi, president and chief executive of Maruho, said that the acquisition of CLS, financial terms of which were not disclosed, represents an important step in building the Japanese firm’s infrastructure and capabilities in the USA.

Maruho is a leader in the development and commercialization of dermatological products in Japan. With the acquisition of CLS, Maruho expects to leverage CLS's expertise in drug development and benefit from CLS' network in the US dermatology market. Maruho intends to further enhance its development pipeline in the USA and effectively utilize both organizations' strengths to promote new development projects and strengthen human resource capabilities to eventually create a fully integrated marketing-development dermatology company in the USA.