Thuja is proud to announce that EsoBiotec has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by AstraZeneca for a total amount of $1Bln, and an upfront payment of $425mln. This is a journey that began for us in 2020 when we first met founder and CEO Jean-Pierre Latere. As EsoBiotec’s seed investor, we saw the groundbreaking potential of their technology early on and made our first investment in 2021. Since then, JP, CSO Philippe Parone, and their team have continued to execute their plan with tremendous efficiency transforming a bold idea into a clinical-stage platform with the potential to impact countless patients’ lives.
We are excited to have AZ lead and continue to invest in the rapid development of EsoBiotec’s ENaBL platform. With this acquisition, EsoBiotec’s groundbreaking science will now advance even faster, for the future benefit of patients across a wide range of severe diseases. After the intended acquisition, EsoBiotec will continue operations in Belgium as a wholly owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca, further strengthening the thriving Benelux cell therapy ecosystem.
This milestone underscores Thuja’s commitment to identifying and backing world-class science at its earliest stages—and supporting visionary founders in building the next generation of life-changing medical breakthroughs.
“Jean-Pierre Latere, CEO, EsoBiotec, said: “We look forward to working with AstraZeneca, a global leader in drug development, to advance our shared goal of bringing transformative cost-effective cell therapies to more patients globally. By combining our expertise and resources, we can accelerate the development of our in vivo platform which has a novel delivery technology we believe will have broad therapeutic applicability.””