LUCA Science Inc. and Kyowa Kirin Co., Ltd. announced they have entered into a research collaboration agreement on the treatment of mitochondrial diseases using platform of an innovative mitochondrial modality. Through this research collaboration, Kyowa Kirin, a leading specialty pharmaceutical company with deep disease science research knowledge based on diverse experiences in biopharmaceutical drug discovery, will leverage LUCA Science's proprietary functional mitochondria therapy platform to develop an innovative treatment for mitochondrial diseases. Mitochondria are organelles known as "intracellular power plants" that produce more than 90% of the body's energy.

Mitochondrial disease, which occurs when mitochondria function is impaired due to a genetic abnormality, has been designated an intractable disease by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan. Mitochondrial disease has a variety of pathological conditions, but it is known that symptoms are particularly strong in organs with high energy requirements, such as brain, heart, muscles, and eyes. Currently, only symptomatic treatment is available for each condition, and no definitive cure has yet been found.

LUCA Science is a preclinical stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering a new class of mitochondrial therapy to restore cellular bioenergetics in dysfunctional or damaged tissues and organs. LUCA Science will use its proprietary platform technology to manufacture, store and deliver innovative mitochondrial drugs to research and development of therapeutics for unmet medical needs in a wide range of diseases for which there have been no effective treatments. Kyowa Kirin is a Japan-based Global Specialty Pharmaceutical Company, focused on research and development of innovative drug discovery driven by antibody technologies, in the core therapeutic areas of oncology, nephrology, central nervous system and immunology.