Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and Syrrx Inc. have agreed on February 5, 2005 to merge Syrrx, Inc. into the Takeda Group.

The merger is subjected to clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and is subject to the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. Upon successful completion of the transaction, which is anticipated to occur in the first quarter of 2005, Syrrx will become a subsidiary of Takeda America Holdings, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Takeda, a company release said.

Founded in February 1999, San Diego based Syrrx achieves a competitive advantage in drug discovery by leveraging its leading high-throughput X-ray crystallography capabilities to determine the three dimensional structures of drug targets. Syrrx uses these structures to efficiently design best-in-class drug candidates. Syrrx directs its efforts toward therapeutics to treat metabolic diseases, cancer, and inflammation, and has multiple R&D pipeline products including several compounds directed to type 2 diabetes already in clinical development.

According to the release, this merger will integrate Syrrx's technologies and R&D pipeline into Takeda and establish a discovery research presence for Takeda in the US. This relationship is expected to help Takeda further enhance its R&D pipeline and to create more innovative drugs as early as possible through efficient discovery processes including identification of target molecules, search for hit compounds and medicinal chemistry research. Syrrx will become part of Takeda's global discovery research network together with Takeda's existing discovery centres in Osaka and Tsukuba, Japan.