IPGaia Inc. (President & CEO, Yasunori Yamaguchi, “IPG”) has entered into a Master Collaborative Research and Development Agreement (“this agreement”) with Tohoku University.
This agreement is intended to propose drug discovery seeds handled by Tohoku University Hospital (Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan; Hospital Director: Hideo Harigae, “Tohoku University Hospital”)※1, regarding IPG platform for efficient generation of high-quality new drugs. This agreement enables IPG to receive proposals for drug discovery seeds handled by Tohoku University Hospital. IPG pursues the joint research program with Tohoku University for identification and development of clinical development candidates with the goal of licensing them to pharmaceutical companies. IPG is soliciting drug discovery seeds from a wide range of research institutions, including global academia and pharmaceutical companies, and is steadily expanding domestically and internationally to the nineth academia institution (Japan: 5 institutions, US: 3 institutions, Singapore: 1 institution), Tohoku University.
“It is our great pleasure and honor to have this agreement with Tohoku University, which is one of the top universities in Japan and has been selected by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology as a candidate for recognition as Universities of International Research Excellence that aim to become a world-leading research university.” Yasu Yamaguchi, Ph.D., President and CEO of IPG states. “This enables IPG to access to promising drug discovery seeds and to create highly innovative medicines. IPG will continue to contribute to solving the global social issues such as high healthcare costs and to extending the healthy life expectancy.”
※1 Tohoku University Hospital: Tohoku University Hospital is one of the national university hospitals with the longest history in Japan. Under the philosophy of ” Providing advanced medical care with kindness”, the hospital provides advanced medical care safely, as well as to its development and training. Additionally, while leveraging the strengths of being part of a comprehensive university, the hospital actively adopts various innovative medical technologies and fosters excellent medical professionals. This contributes to improving the quality of healthcare and solving medical challenges. In 2015, the hospital was designated by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare as a “Core Clinical Research Hospital” under the Medical Care Act. Centering on the “Clinical Research, Innovation and Education Center (CRIETO)” established within the hospital, it promotes international standard clinical research, drug discovery, and medical device development in collaboration with various enterprises, thereby contributing to the advancement of medicine and healthcare as a hub for clinical research.
[About IPG]
IPG was established on October 26, 2021, as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Healthcare New Platform Fund where Whiz. Partners Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Atsushi Matsumura) has been the general partner. IPG leverages the valuable drug discovery research data and expertise of its comprehensive partnership agreement, Axcelead and Axcelead DDP, to select promising research seeds and projects. By collaborating among the parties to build a next stage drug discovery platform, it would be possible to generate high quality innovative pharmaceuticals in a shorter period of time and lower cost. As for the pharmaceutical industry, the trend of the horizontal division of labor business model would be more accelerating. IPG plays a role as a platformer for creating pre-clinical stage innovative new medicines.