Astellas and Tokyo-Tech collaborate on neglected disease research

The Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo-Tech) and Japanese drug major Astellas Pharma (TYO: 4503) have signed a joint research agreement for drug discovery research utilizing Tokyo-Tech’s TSUBAME2.0 supercomputer to efficiently discover candidates for the treatment of diseases caused by protozoan parasites.

Worldwide, many therapeutic areas with high unmet medical needs still remain that patients cannot be treated satisfactorily, such as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) which pose public health problems on a global scale. International efforts are ongoing against NTDs, and this joint research aims to contribute to the drug discovery for the treatment of diseases caused by protozoan parasites, such as leishmaniasis, Chagas disease and sleeping sickness in NTDs.

Under this agreement, financial terms of which were not disclosed, a research group led by Masakazu Sekijima, associate professor at the Global Scientific Information and Computing Center, Tokyo-Tech and Astellas will cooperate in drug discovery for the treatment of diseases caused by protozoan parasites.