More insight about each category is detailed below:
-
Create new modalities and encourage paradigm shifts.
- Creation of versatile modalities such as protein medicines, antibody drugs,
nucleic acid medicines, cell and regenerative medicine, and gene therapy
- Creation of novel new modalities that encourage a paradigm shift in specific
disease areas, such as adjuvant vector cell (aAVC) technology
- Creation of pathophysiological specific modality technologies such as cell
regeneration
-
Find new drug discovery targets and answer unmet needs.
- Focus on diseases that unmet needs are clear.
Priority will be given to diseases that can make use of the strengths of
RIKEN drug discovery, such as rare diseases, infectious diseases, CNS
diseases, immune diseases, etc.
- It is positioned as a medium- to long-term theme centering on infectious
disease, especially viral diseases.
We will make use of the experience of the new Corona Special Project, which
we challenged by making full use of RIKEN's modalities such as small
molecule medicines, antibody drugs, and aAVC technology.
- We will build a pipeline using new modalities that are created by RIKEN,
such as aAVC technology, and promote a paradigm shift in specific disease
areas.
-
Explore the direction of "target × modality" evolution.
In the past, the evolution of modality has been a major driving force in creating
the evolution of drug discovery. We will challenge this approach to promote the
evolution of "target × modality" by making full use of riken's advanced
technology related to life sciences. Specifically, we will start with the
following items and gradually challenge the direction of new evolution.
- Conversion of protein and antibody drugs to small molecules
A small
percentage of cytokine signals have been shown to be substituted with small
molecules, and this fact finds universal law and aims for the next
generation of drug discovery.
RIKEN is full of science and technology that produces two elements of "target" and "modality",
and I am confident that if we release this power toward drug discovery with our own point of
focus, we can realize further evolution of drug discovery on our own.