Topics R & D Committee "Member Companies' R&D Needs" is now available.
The JPMA R & D Committee has been continuing discussions on the drug discovery ecosystem and has implemented several measures. In this issue, we introduce one of the measures, "Disclosure of R&D needs of member companies".
At a press conference held by the JPMA in February 2024, Chairman Hiroaki Ueno explained that, in order to continuously develop innovative drugs, it is necessary to create a virtuous cycle between strengthening drug discovery capabilities and appropriately evaluating innovation.Regarding the strengthening of drug discovery capabilities in particular, he highlighted the importance of a “drug discovery ecosystem”—a platform for organic collaboration among multiple players—and identified four key elements necessary to achieve this: (1) the practical application of foundational drug discovery technologies, (2) the sustainable establishment and nurturing of startups,(3) strengthening manufacturing capabilities for new modalities, and (4) establishing a foundation for data utilization.
The JPMA R & D Committee focused on (1) practical application of fundamental drug-discovery technologies and, in the course of organizing issues and discussing measures, noted that academia and start-ups have voiced their concern that they are having difficulty in finding referrals for seeds and technologies they possess. As a contribution that the JPMA can make, we planned to use the JPMA website to disclose the R&D needs of the R & D Committee member companies in a centralized manner, and we released the Japanese version of the website ahead of the competition on April 1, 2024.
The website can be accessed from the JPMA's top page via the R & D Committee's webpage.
As of September 2024, the Japanese version of the site contains information on 28 companies, and the English version, which was released at the end of July, contains information on 23 companies. This section includes information on external collaboration sites operated by each company, their focus areas and drug discovery needs, and contact information for the person in charge ( Figure 1 ).
Figure 1: Part of the R & D Committee member companies' R&D needs site
In FY2024, we plan to update the information every quarter. We hope that this initiative will serve as a catalyst for the creation of as many partnerships as possible. We hope you will visit our website and make use of it.
| R & D Committee member companies' R&D needs https://www.jpma.or.jp/information/research/RD_needs/ |
 |
 |
Drug discovery needs of R&D Committee member companies https://www.jpma.or.jp/english/reports/research/RD_needs/ |
||
| Japanese version | English version |
(R & D Committee Chairperson: Nobuyuki Tanaka )