Houlihan Lokey Advises Takara Bio
Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Takara Bio, Inc. (TSE:4974; Takara Bio), a world leader in biotechnology research and development, acquired Curio Bioscience, Inc. (Curio) on January 15, 2025.
Takara Bio is a leading global biotechnology and life science company based in Japan. It offers a host of life science research solutions, from enzymes and GMP-grade reagents to contracted cell and gene therapy manufacturing services. It is also the developer of the RetroNectin® reagent, a world standard in gene therapy protocols.
Curio, based in Palo Alto, California, is advancing a new generation of high-precision tools for the life sciences industry. It has developed innovative spatial biology capabilities to map the whole transcriptome at high resolution using existing sequencing workflows and instrumentation. The founding team has a strong track record of bringing genomic solutions to market.
This acquisition will extend the power of Takara Bio’s NGS solutions and give customers deeper insights into tissue spatial organization and molecular composition by combining Curio’s technology with Takara Bio’s vast NGS and single-cell tool set.
This deal represents another successful transaction for Houlihan Lokey in the healthcare sector. Curio's acquisition marks the fourth buyside transaction advised by our finance professionals and the third buyside transaction for Takara Bio in which Houlihan Lokey was the exclusive advisor (including deals done at acquired firms).