Kaken Pharmaceutical and Axcelead DDP Begin Collaboration to Create Innovative New Drugs

2023.01.11

Kaken Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (“Kaken”, Head Office: Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo; President and Representative Director, Hiroyuki Horiuchi) and Axcelead Drug Discovery Partners, Inc. (“Axcelead DDP”, Head Office: Fujisawa, Kanagawa; President and CEO, Yoshinori Ikeura) announced that the companies have entered into an agreement to collaborate on creating innovative new drugs.

As part of initiatives that will be taken to realize the R&D strategy outlined in the company’s “Long-Term Business Plan 2031¹⁾”, Kaken will collaborate with Axcelead DDP to strengthen its pipeline creation engine using the drug discovery technologies and resources of both companies to continuously create innovative new drugs. Axcelead DDP has the wide range of platform capabilities and extensive experience in drug discovery, and through this collaboration it will promote multiple drug discovery projects from the discovery of new drug targets to IND and the clinical stage in the shortest term, supporting Kaken’s initiatives to expand its pipeline.

Hiroyuki Horiuchi, President and Representative Director of Kaken, said, “We are committed to transforming our drug discovery research process to be more data-driven, in order to shorten the R&D period and increase the success rate of new drug discovery. This collaboration with Axcelead DDP entails a new form of drug discovery research that leverages the technologies and resources of both companies. Going forward, we will transform our discovery research process even faster and work with Axcelead DDP as ONE TEAM to create breakthrough new drugs.”

Yoshinori Ikeura, President and CEO of Axcelead DDP, said, “This collaboration with Kaken is one of the initiatives to achieve the company’s long-term business plan, and we will be taking on a major responsibility as the pipeline creation engine for Kaken. This is an unprecedented collaborative scheme in which both companies will leverage each other’s strengths regarding drug discovery, and we plan to help Kaken create innovative drugs by maximizing Axcelead DDP’s drug discovery capabilities and working closely with Kaken as the best partner company.”

References

¹⁾ Kaken Pharmaceutical’s Long-term Business Plan 2031: https://www.kaken.co.jp/english/invest/policy/long_term.html

Kaken Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

Kaken is an R&D driven pharmaceutical company, established in 1948, and its corporate philosophy is to help improve the quality of life of patients by serving as many people as possible to return smiles of happiness to their faces, through supplying superior pharmaceuticals. Recently, KAKEN has increased its presence in dermatology and orthopedics, and Clenafin, a drug discovered in-house and first topical onychomycosis treatment in Japan, continues to grow as a global product.

For more information, please visit https://www.kaken.co.jp/english/

About Axcelead Drug Discovery Partners, Inc.

Launched in July 2017, Axcelead is Japan’s first integrated drug discovery solutions provider, having taken over the drug discovery capabilities of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. The company provides integrated services, from the discovery of drug targets to the optimization of small- and medium-molecule drug candidates, in which the company has particular expertise. Axcelead also helps bridge the gap to clinical development.