Motivation for research is great, but
ethics is also needed to break the temptation of data fraud

ModeratorThen I would like to start the exchange session.
Since this is a breakout room, I would like you to feel free to ask the lecturers any questions you may have. Please begin at the beginning.

This may be a little off the subject of the student lecture, but recently there was a scandal at a certain pharmaceutical company, or rather, a case of improper manufacturing of pharmaceutical products. As a researcher, could you tell us what you think about such incidents?

ModeratorThat is a very typical break room question. How about you, Mr. Imai?

Imai:As I mentioned in my speech today, adding some of my own values, I believe that the reason for misconduct in the first place is that "the motive is good and the motive is selfless.
Anyone involved in research would like to present new data.
However, there are certainly researchers who fabricate or falsify data because they are too eager to advance their own research and link it to drug discovery.
We once had an incident in which we falsified data and commercialized a product by pretending that we had conducted a clinical trial when we had not.
I think researchers are always tempted to do this.
The important thing is how to control it, but I think the only way is to have a strong sense of ethics yourself.
The pressure from the company to achieve results can be great, but if you cause a problem, it will eventually come back to you.
In particular, research at pharmaceutical companies is strictly controlled, so if you lie, it will definitely be exposed somewhere.
Therefore, I always think that I have no choice but to be strong.

Thank you, student. Let me ask one more question.
In your lecture today, you mentioned that the fact that you enjoy your research is a very big motivation for you.
He said that his motivation is not so much whether the drugs he developed will actually be useful or cure patients, but more about the research itself.
Do you actually think that whether or not a disease is cured is unimportant, or is that not very high up in your ranks as a source of motivation? That is what I was wondering.

ImaiTo be honest, whether it is useful or not for patients is not a major personal or scientific interest of mine.
Perhaps that is not allowed as long as you are in a pharmaceutical company, but personally I don't think it is necessary to be that particular about it.
However, a drug is not a drug unless it is useful to patients.
Pharmaceutical companies make a profit by producing drugs, so it is naturally unacceptable for them to pursue research based on their own interests alone.
There are many researchers at pharmaceutical companies who have high aspirations to save patients by developing a therapeutic drug for cancer, for example, so I think it would be better to think of this as a special case of "my case.

ModeratorWhat you just said may be quite special.
Ms. Imai, the pressure is very strong in the research profession, and if you don't have that kind of mindset, you may feel crushed.

ImaiThat may be the case depending on the situation.

Despite diseases becoming more complex
the speed of drug development is not slowing down

ModeratorAre there any questions about pharmaceutical R&D itself?

StudentPlease forgive me if this question is a bit impolite.
I heard in the first stage lecture that it takes many years for a drug to be developed, go through clinical trials, and be approved.
My personal impression is that the current speed of drug development in Japan and the rest of the world is a bit slow.
What do you think about the speed of drug development as a researcher, that is, someone who is involved in research from the initial stage of drug development?

ImaiI think you mean the time from the discovery of the seeds of a drug or a candidate substance to its approval as a drug, and my impression is that it is getting much faster now.

ModeratorI agree.

ImaiIt seems that in the past, there were many drugs with rather simple targets.
In other words, the target of the drug was relatively peripheral, not the central nervous system, and the hurdles that had to be overcome were not extremely high. But even so, it still took about 10 years to develop them.
On the other hand, with the recent progress in disease research, the targets for treatment have become much more complex, and the hurdle for development itself has become very high.
However, even so, the development period is still only about 10 to 15 years, which is not significantly longer.
Considering that the hurdles that must be overcome are much higher than in the past, at least compared to about 10 years ago, the development speed and even the time to market (launch) have not been extended that much. So I think it is fair to say that overall, the process has become much more efficient and faster.

As a student trend, do you think that the pharmaceutical industry as a whole has a desire to get drugs to patients as quickly as possible, even though diseases are becoming more and more complex?

ImaiYes. If the development period is extended, development costs will increase further, so I think everyone wants to develop drugs in a short period of time, even if they are considering profit.

StudentThank you very much. Personally, I thought it was too slow, but I was a little pleased to hear that development is being accelerated.

ModeratorAs we always say at the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Japan, Japan's pharmaceutical industry is at a level that is second to none in the world, so I don't think that the development period is longer than in other countries.

It's hard to be aware of excellent research, so
don't aim for great achievements

ModeratorI assume that all the participants will be involved in research in the future, but is there anything you would like to know now?

There are quite a few of my student peers who have an amazing amount of knowledge or who have already entered a laboratory and begun research.
When I see such people, I feel a kind of impatience.
People who conduct research are focused on their achievements and papers, so when they feel that other people are doing better research, they may become ill or suffer from mental disorders.
How do you deal with and control such a state of mind?

ImaiAt least, I don't think I am a great researcher myself, so I don't worry too much about such things.
However, there was a time when I went to graduate school and aspired to live in academia with great hopes.
At that time, I met with a cutting-edge researcher and was devastated to realize that I could not live in academia unless I reached this level.
From that time on, I came to terms with the fact that it was impossible for me to produce the same kind of results as those researchers, and that I could never become a truly excellent researcher, or a researcher who could produce innovation on his own.
Therefore, I have not suffered too much from that at this point.
If I only think about achieving results at the cutting-edge level, it will become hard, and at that point, research will no longer be fun, and I think that every day will become a struggle.

StudentAs you mentioned earlier, you are motivated more by the fact that your research is interesting than by your achievements.

ImaiIf that were not the case, it would be too hard for me to continue my research.

ModeratorComparing yourself with others is a good or bad thing, isn't it?

ImaiI sometimes think that someone else has accumulated more achievements or published more papers than me, but it is hard when I am conscious of that.

ModeratorIt is true that it is hard to focus on that.

ImaiImmediately, research activities become boring, so I feel that you have to find a way to come to terms with yourself.
I call it "wall-banging," but I often make friends outside the company, talk to them about what I am doing, and get advice from them.
I think that wall-hopping is one way to do this, even over a drink.

Establish your field by digging deep into your interests and
have a place to return to if you fail

ModeratorYou mentioned earlier that researchers need to have a sense of ethics.

StudentI belong to an organization called inochi WAKAZO Project.
What I would like to ask you is similar to what the student asked earlier, but I am wondering what you find interesting in your research and why you continue to do it.
I believe that there should be more than one thing that one wants to do or is interested in at a given moment, but I am not sure if what I am interested in now is an interest that will last forever in the future, or if it is something that I can make a kind of commitment to work on if I think it will last for the rest of my life. I don't know much about it myself.
I would like to ask you what part of drug research you are interested in to continue it as a career.

Imai: It's a difficult question, but the basic premise is that circumstances move on, as no one thing basically lasts forever.
As I mentioned briefly in my speech, the first step is to think about where your strengths lie.
If you can't put your feet on that axis, it will be hard, or you won't be able to do anything.
It is also a good idea to clarify where your interests lie.
When you have your feet firmly planted on that axis and have a firm grasp of where you stand, you will be able to extend your legs to the next interest and broaden your scope.
I call it pivoting.
When you have a clear idea of your field, and when that field is solid, I think you can fly yourself quite far.
If you have the mindset that if you fly far and your field is not good enough, you can come back to your own field again, I think you will be able to make your interests fly farther.
So, even in a company, if you can dig deep into your area of interest at first, and think that this is your field, or at least that you are the only one in the company who is familiar with this field, you can fly to various places from there.
This was especially true for AI, but there are also interests that are quite different from biological research, so I think it is a good way to keep motivated by gradually shifting your interests outside of the field.
Of course, this depends on each individual, but I think it is important to at least be able to verbalize what is interesting to you.

ModeratorThat is not limited to the research field.

ImaiYes, I think it is the same in any field.

ModeratorSo you are saying that you need to have your strong areas, your solid areas, and the areas where you can get back to where you were.
I think this is a very thought-provoking talk.

The appeal of universities is that you can do research without worrying about time
The beauty of pharmaceutical companies is that research leads to products

ModeratorI just heard you talk about your attitude toward research.

What kind of differences did you feel when you worked as a researcher in a company and then in academia?
What do you think, if any, were the differences between working as a researcher in a company and working in academia?

Imai: I was transferred to a university in my third year at the company, but what I enjoyed about returning to academia was that I could just experiment and not worry about overtime hours.
When I joined the company, I was always concerned about overtime hours, but while I was on loan at the university, I probably worked about 120 hours of overtime per month.
That and the fact that I can direct my experiments to areas that interest me are also major attractions.
It doesn't mean that you don't have to go through the procedures at the university either, but it is simply more fun because there are significantly fewer procedures.
On the other hand, university research almost never reaches a drug.
I think that universities are better at identifying the seeds of truly core drugs and candidate substances, but I believe that only pharmaceutical companies can take it from there to products.
The final product is a drug, and as you often say, it saves patients.
I think one of the advantages of doing research at a pharmaceutical company is the ability to link such results.

Leave it to the companies to link research to drug discovery
I would like you to spend more time on intellectual work at the university

ModeratorYou mentioned earlier that there are university students who are already involved in research in laboratories.

To be more specific, in the project I am working on now, we are considering a medicine and its container at the same time.
The idea itself has been evaluated as a very good one, and we have already reached the point where a prototype of the container is ready or not.
However, we have not yet made progress on the medicine.
As I explained earlier, it will take about nine years at most to actually produce the drug.
If you are serious about drug discovery, what kind of connections should be established first?

ImaiDo you mean connections with other organizations or institutions?

StudentYes.

ImaiAfter all, one person cannot do everything to create medicines, so a team of people from various fields must be formed to work on it.
Therefore, I think the first step is to create such a team.
If you already have the seeds of a drug, you should obtain a patent as soon as possible, and since there are many companies engaged in open innovation, you should approach them and ask them to buy your idea.
It is not impossible that a pharmaceutical company that is interested in your idea will offer money to do it at their company, leading to drug discovery.
Although I say "market launch," I think it is probably impossible for a university to bring a drug to the market on its own.
For example, collecting data would be an incredibly tedious step, and that is not something that we want universities to do, nor do we want them to do it.
What I mean by not wanting it to be done at universities is that there is no need to do such a wasteful thing at universities, and I would like to see more time spent on intellectual labor.
I don't think you should think that you are going to take drug discovery to the final stage in the university.

I was wondering what I should do as a student, but what you just said made my direction very clear. Thank you very much.

Moderator: It seems that the questions from the audience have been exhausted, so I would like to ask one question.
How did you arrive at your current position in AI without any background in AI drug discovery?

Imai:I started from the very beginning to understand what AI is, and then studied its history, matrix equations, Fourier transforms, and so on.
After acquiring such basic knowledge, I read various papers by AI researchers.

ModeratorIt has been several years since you started your research.

Imai: AI is still positioned as an adjunct to drug discovery, but huge investments have already been made, mainly by foreign companies, and the annual income of data scientists involved in this field is usually 40 or 50 million yen.
There is a huge demand for data scientists, and I believe they will become even more important in the future.
In that sense, I think this is an attractive area.

ModeratorI would like to hear more, but the time has come. Thank you very much for joining us today.