Japanese majors collaborate on drug repositioning

11 October 2017

Three of Japan’s largest pharmaceutical firms today announced they will collaborate in facilitating drug discovery in Japan through open innovation sharing of compounds developed by the companies.

The companies - Astellas Pharma (TYO: 4503), Daiichi Sankyo (TYO: 4568) and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma (TYO: 4508) - will jointly conduct a program called “JOINUS” (Joint Open INnovation of drUg repoSitioning) to discover new therapeutic drugs using drug-repositioning compound libraries. The JOINUS program will be carried out as a part of the companies’ open innovation activities.

In the JOINUS program, Astellas, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma and Daiichi Sankyo have generated compound library containing compounds for which development has been terminated after implementation of clinical or preclinical studies and will offer the library as a drug-repositioning compound library to Japanese research institutions accepted to the program for evaluation via their respective in vitro1 assays.

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