Ascendis Pharma A/S (Nasdaq: ASND) is a Danish biopharmaceutical company founded in 2006 and headquartered at Tuborg Boulevard 12, Hellerup (Greater Copenhagen), Denmark, with U.S. operations in Palo Alto/Redwood City, California and New Jersey. It is publicly listed on Nasdaq; it is not a subsidiary. Headcount was roughly 1,200 full-time employees per its FY2024 Form 20-F, and total revenue for 2024 was €363.6 million, up from €266.7 million in 2023.
Ascendis develops long-acting therapeutics using its proprietary TransCon prodrug technology platform, applied to clinically validated parent drugs. It commercializes SKYTROFA (lonapegsomatropin, TransCon hGH) for pediatric growth hormone deficiency, YORVIPATH (palopegteriparatide, TransCon PTH) for hypoparathyroidism, and — following FDA approval in February 2026 — YUVIWEL (navepegritide, TransCon CNP) for achondroplasia. It has additional endocrinology and oncology candidates and spun out ophthalmology assets into Eyconis.
Litigation posture: an operating company engaged in active two-way patent litigation, not an assertion entity. Its three plaintiff-side appearances are declaratory-judgment actions against BioMarin in the Northern District of California (April 11, 2025 and July 7, 2025), asserting non-infringement of BioMarin's U.S. Patent No. RE48,267 and invoking the 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(1) safe harbor. Its single defendant-side appearance is BioMarin's parallel Section 337 complaint at the ITC (April 2, 2025) over imports of TransCon CNP. Venue is the Northern District of California, not a plaintiff-friendly NPE district.
Context: The dispute centered on C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP) variants and competing achondroplasia therapies. In Ascendis Pharma A/S v. BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., the Federal Circuit (Mar. 26, 2026) affirmed denial of Ascendis's motion for a mandatory stay under 28 U.S.C. § 1659(a)(2), holding it could not reset the 30-day deadline by voluntarily dismissing and refiling. On August 30–31, 2026, the parties announced a global settlement: Ascendis pays BioMarin royalties of 20% of U.S. Yuviwel net sales and 18% in the EU, Brazil and South Korea through May 2030; BioMarin dismissed the ITC investigation and all related proceedings.