Astellas Pharma : Enters into a New Collaborative Research Agreement with TB Alliance to Discover Anti- tuberculosis Drugs

Tokyo, October 18, 2017 - Astellas Pharma Inc. (President and CEO: Yoshihiko Hatanaka, 'Astellas' ) today announced that it has entered into a new collaborative research agreement with TB Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to finding faster-acting and affordable drug regimens to fight tuberculosis (TB), for the exploration of new drugs against TB. This research program will be funded by the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund ('GHIT Fund').

Under this agreement, Astellas will provide its original library of tens of thousands of compounds, and TB Alliance will be in charge of screening for the discovery of hit compounds to be used in the research and development of new TB drugs.

TB is a disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which leads to death in the worst cases. In 2015, 10.4 million people fell ill with TB, and as many as 1.8 million people (including 0.4 million infected with HIV) died of this disease. Over 95% of TB deaths occur in the developing world. This situation is posing a serious problem and the discovery of innovative new TB drugs are desired.

The GHIT Fund, which will fund this research program, is an international non-profit organization aimed at leveraging Japanese expertise and capability for life-saving health innovations, including drugs, vaccines and diagnostics, to combat HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria, neglected tropical diseases prevalent in the developing world. Astellas has supported the GHIT Fund for five years since its foundation, and has also committed to supporting it for the next five years (FY2018-FY2022) together with a cross-sector group of funding partners.

Astellas will continue to resolving Access to Health issues through commitment to this research collaboration as well as continuous participation in the GHIT Fund.