Buying and Building a Gene Therapy Presence

Astellas Pharma took a big step into gene therapies when it announced an agreement at the end of 2019 to acquire Audentes Therapeutics for $3 billion. The company continues to build on that acquisition and has just completed construction on a 154,000 square foot, state-of the art cell and gene therapy facility to bring together teams dispersed across 20 locations. We spoke Ha Tran, medical head of cell and gene therapy for Astellas Pharma, about the company’s vision for cell and gene therapies, its efforts to restart trials for its X-linked myotubular myopathy gene therapy, and how it is looking to other programs beyond that.