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Originally established in 2000 as Yamanouchi Venture Capital, Astellas aims to reinforce Astellas Pharma's assets by supporting companies that can become Astellas Pharma's collaboration partners in R&D. Astellas Ventures invests in companies that are dedicated to: developing new pharmaceutical seeds, or constructing a new drug discovery platform. In addition to the disease area of Urology and Inflammation/Immunology, Astellas has an interest in the fields of CNS, Pain, Diabetes/Metabolic disease, Anti-infectives (anti-viral) and Cancer. Astellas is active mainly in seed and early-stage investments in companies that have not yet begun testing their products in clinical trials, as well as firms that have programs at very early stages of clinical trials. However the firm also considers participating in expansion-stage investments. Astellas' investments range in size from $.5 - 10 million. Initial investments typically range from $.5 - 2 million. The venture group is a division of Astellas Pharma, Inc., a Tokyo based company created in 2005 by the merger of Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. AVM manages the following funds: AVF I (Astellas Venture Fund I), AVC (Astellas Venture Capital), FITE (Fujisawa Investments for Entrepreneurship), and FITE II (Fujisawa Investments for Entrepreneurship II).
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