Ascendis Pharma

Ascendis Pharma is an emerging speciality pharmaceutical company which creates improved, patentable versions of marketed drugs and high-value development-stage opportunities. The company operates within the therapeutic areas of endocrinology, central nervous system disorders and infectious diseases. The company is built upon a novel prodrug technology, TransCon, which conjugates peptides, proteins or small molecules to a carrier molecule in a reversible fashion. This unique reversibility allows an unmodified active drug to be released (unlinked) in the body in a precise, time-controlled fashion, creating a long-acting effect. Conventional conjugation technologies are unable to achieve this type of slow-release mechanism because the carrier molecule cannot de-link from the drug. Ascendis Pharma has seven high-value products in its portfolio, of which the lead program – TransCon PEG hGH – is a superior growth hormone with a once-weekly dosing regime, and this is part of the company’s specialty focus on endocrinology.The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and Copenhagen, Denmark. It also maintains research and clinical development sites in Heidelberg, Germany and Copenhagen, Denmark.