Noriko Ogawa, Holland Innovation Network Tokyo (Innovatie Attaché Netwerk Tokio)
Origineel gepubliceerd op de site van RVO.
Japan kent nog een grote pharmaceutische industrie. Onder invloed van stijgende kosten, aflopende patenten en snelle technologische ontwikkelingen zoeken deze private partijen steeds actiever ook buiten de landsgrenzen naar technologiesamenwerking. Dit proces verloopt o.a. via overnames van (vaak) Amerikaanse en Europese ondernemingen (incl. de patenten) en zgn. ‘open innovatie-beurzen’. Hieronder volgt een beknopt overzicht van recente ontwikkelingen en aanknopingspunten voorsamenwerking.
Japan seeks advanced technology and joint development projects for drug discovery from early stage
The second largest Japanese pharmaceutical company, Astellas announced to acquire a clinical-stage drug discovery company, Ogeda SA for EUR 800 million April 3 2017. Ogeda develops small molecule drugs targeting G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). Astellas also acquired a German biopharmaceutical company, focuses on the development of antibodies against cancer for EUR 422 million in October 2016(1). There are great opportunities for Dutch researchers as the active movements of searching for seeds technologies from Japan will increase in the future. The Japanese pharmaceutical companies also provide international grant programs of joint-research for drug discovery and eager to develop together with excellent researchers in the Netherlands. The trend is the Japanese pharmaceuticals are accelerating expansion of partnerships from early stage and execute clinical studies both in Japan and overseas for co-development and application enlargement.
“Optivo” the Innovative Cancer drug and joint developments with overseas
– drug discovery trends in Japan,
A new cancer drug, Optivo (nivolumab) launched in 2014 by Ono pharmaceutical. This was the first Immuno-Oncology agent and improved treatment for patients with melanoma. Within three years, the application enlarged and approved for cancers of lung, kidney, and blood. (2)
The approval for head/neck was announced on March 27 2017 and “Optivo” is expected to apply for 20 indication expansions Ono Pharmaceutical once faced severe difficulties after 2003, as their under developed projects discontinued one after the other, and they had to find new projects. Although Ono Pharmaceutical decided to co-develop the molecule, a programmed death-1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitor, discovered by the lab of Dr.Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University, they could not find hospitals for clinical trials in Japan. They started co-research with Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2005 to conduct clinical development programs. They extended the cooperation in 2011 and now more than 25,000 patients enrolled the clinical studies, and approved in more than 60 countries.
From this successful experience of collaborations of “Optivo”, Ono Pharmaceutical is very active to discover and create innovative drugs by research collaboration teams based in overseas and visit universities, institutes and startups. On March 28, 2017, Ono announced a research agreement with a Swiss startup, Numab Therapeutics AG founded in 2011 develops a pipeline of multi-specific biotherapeutics in immuno-oncology and immunology. Ono also engaged in numerous research collaborations for drug discovery with companies in the EU and U.S. for inflammation, autoimmune diseases, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, CNS disorders, G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCR). They continue to form numerous research collaborations with the research institutes and startups.
(2) Ono pharmaceutical R&D global collaborations https://www.ono.co.jp/eng/alliances/partners.html
“ONO enters agreement with Numab” https://www.ono.co.jp/eng/news/pdf/sm_cn170328_1.pdf
Shionogi Pharmaceutical, the 10th largest pharma in Japan is also enhancing global co-development with overseas and has a strong interest in collaborating with the Netherlands. Shionogi has an excellent development ability that 72% of the drugs are from their own chemical compounds. (3) Thus, Shionogi continues to strengthen partnerships with overseas after their successful experience of “Tivicay”, HIV integrase inhibitor with a subsidiary of GSK, which they co-developed and realised early launch and market expansion. In 2016, Shionogi signed the agreement in developing their anti-influenza drug with Roche for speed up the development.
(3)Shionogi Innovation program http://www.shionogi.co.jp/openinnovation/en/
Grants for Open innovation by Japanese mega pharmaceuticals
Major Japanese pharmaceutical companies have unique open innovation grant programs for innovative research. The focus areas vary and many of these grants are for one to two years and there are some flexibility on grant for high potential projects as well. Daiichi-Sankyo initiates publicly offered the seeds finding open innovation program for EU. (4) They also established a system to invest and support the startups for selected seeds. Astellas also have drug discovery programs for grants up to JPY30 million applied in Japan, and 27 projects were selected in four years. The open innovation center for drug discovery at the University of Tokyo provides the compound library with the support of Ono pharmaceutical and Daiichi-Sankyo, and others. The Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry promotes and supports conferences where players from academia, pharmaceutical companies, and venture capitals can meet and exchange the information. It is very important to collaborate from early stage, and create research plan and strategy together to launch the product.
(4) Daiichi sankyo Grant, Open to researchers affiliated with research institutes “TaNeDS” http://www.daiichisankyo.com/rd/taneds/index.html
(5) AJINOMOTO Open innovation alliance program https://www.ajinomoto.com/en/rd/AIAP/
-Astellas (for researchers in Japan) https://www.astellas.com/jp/a-cube/theme/index.html
-Takeda (for researchers in Japan) https://www.takeda.co.jp/research/openi/cockpit/
NEC ventures into Drug discovery using AI
NEC aims to discover new drugs using advanced AI technologies, and established “CYTLIMIC Inc.” (CYTLIMIC), to promote the development and application of therapeutic cancer peptide” vaccines discovered using NEC’s unique advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology in December 2016 (6) (7). Prior to this movement, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare announced that the government enhances supports of new drug development with big data for using AI and budgeted from the fiscal year of 2017, From the industry, Takeda pharmaceutical, FujiFilm, Shionogi started an association to develop new drugs with IT companies such as NEC and Fujitsu, with corporations of Kyoto University and RIKEN research institute in order to enhance the effectiveness of drug discovery. The structure of new drug discovery using AI from early stage and the full scale open innovation has just begun.
(6) NEC March 2017https://wisdom.nec.com/en/innovation/2017030601/index.html
(7) NEC http://www.nec.com/en/press/201612/global_20161219_02.html
-MHLW budget for 2017 using AI for drug discovery http://www.nedo.go.jp/content/100799736.pdf
More opportunities and earlier launch of the product with partners in Japan
New drugs for cerebral infarction and brain surgery using stem cells are now under development in Phase II stage and getting closer to get an approval in Japan.
Dr.Keita Mori, CEO of Sun Bio Inc. the regenerative medicine startup of the drugs is Japanese who established a company 16 years ago in the U.S. but he moved his head office in Tokyo in 2014.The regulatory reform of regenerative medicine in 2014 made Japan as the most attractive market in the world for the researchers. Because once the drug is selected for the expedited approval program, it is on the fast track and possible to avoid the long approval processes for launch. The clinical studies for this drug for cerebral infection and brain damage have conducted both in the U.S. and in Japan. Researchers from Europe and Asia are now interested to partnering with Japan for earlier launch of their products. Many of them are already conducting clinical trials and have positive results of the study, they highly evaluate the new Japanese approval system to secure competitive edge of the products by entering the market early. There will be a Regenerative Medicine conference in Yokohama, Japan. It is the co-event with Bio Japan. Their partner search event is very active and nearly 900 organisations participated in 2016. The Japanese companies are expecting for partners to develop innovative drugs together.
Regenrative medicine Japan http://www.ics-expo.jp/saisei/en/index.html
Bio Japan http://www.ics-expo.jp/biojapan/en/
Noriko Ogawa, Innovatie Attaché Tokio, 27 April 2017
‘Het IA-Netwerk verbindt in opdracht van het ministerie van Economische Zaken kennis over internationale innovatieve ontwikkelingen en daaraan gerelateerde trends aan Nederlandse bedrijven, kennisinstituten en overheden.’
