ROUNDUP: Asian companies kick off new financial year with deals, details

With what for most of them is a new fiscal year, drug companies in Asia rolled out a series of deals and other actions, among them a submerger of a sort, a buyout, a research agreement and a housecleaning.

-- Daiichi Sankyo's U.S. unit plans to merge with the U.S. research unit of Asubio Pharmaceuticals to fold the research work and global development work into one company to be headed by Dr. Mahmoud Ghazzi. The Asubio unit's parent, Asubio Pharma, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daiichi Sankyo and is set to begin clinical trials into a treatment for spinal cord injury. Release

-- Indoco Remedies said it plans to buy the generics CRO business of Piramal Enterprises, Piramal Clinical Research, in an all-India deal. Indoco did not disclose the sale price of the deal, which is expected to be completed within just a few days. It did say the merger would help reduce its research costs. Reuters

-- Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) has signed a collaboration agreement with U.S.-based Curiox Biosystems to validate its system for monitoring immunity more efficiently than other devices. A*STAR's Singapore Immunology Network is to validate use of the Curiox technology in Luminex assays. Release

-- Takeda Pharmaceutical said it plans to close its production plant in Belgium, one of 18 factories around the world it acquired four years ago when it bought Swiss-based Nycomed. Christophe Weber announced the move as one of his first acts wearing the two hats of CEO and president. The Brussels plant produces pills and syrups, but had not been used much recently. Nikkei