IPGaia Inc. (President & CEO, Yasunori Yamaguchi, “IPG”) and Kyoto University (Provost, Nagahiro Minato) have entered into a Master Collaborative Research and Development Agreement (“this agreement”) dated November 17, 2023. This agreement establishes a formal framework for the incorporation of promising drug target leads from Kyoto University into IPG’s drug discovery platform.
This agreement enables Kyoto University to propose drug targets to IPG for identification and development of lead compounds or modalities with the goal of licensing clinical development candidates to pharmaceutical companies. IPG is soliciting drug target leads from a wide range of research institutions, including global academia and pharmaceutical companies, and is steadily expanding to the seventh institution, Kyoto University, to receive drug target leads from academia, both domestically and internationally.
Upon the conclusion of this agreement, Shinji Asonuma, Director of the Kyoto University Open Innovation Institute, stated the following: “The environment surrounding drug discovery is constantly evolving, and international competition is intensifying. Even in such circumstances, it is of utmost importance to promptly translate outstanding research results generated at Kyoto University into pharmaceuticals for society through open science, providing innovative drugs to those suffering from diseases. Through the collaboration with IPG, we anticipate that the practical application of research outcomes at Kyoto University will progress rapidly, leading to innovative drug development.”
“It is our great pleasure and honor to have this agreement with Kyoto University which is one of the leading research institute in Japan.” 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. In this sense, IPG moves forward to contributing to solving the global social issues such as high healthcare costs and to extending the healthy life expectancy.”
[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 will generate composition of matter patents for new chemical entities by conducting non-clinical research and development activities and make variety of transactions mainly with pharmaceutical companies. IPG has already concluded a comprehensive partnership agreement with Axcelead, Inc. and Axcelead Drug Discovery Partners, Inc. (https://www.axcelead-hd.com/834/) . 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.
【About Open Innovation Institute】
The Open Innovation Institute is a research center that plans and conducts full and large-scale collaborative studies between organizations based on university-wide research themes. Its objective is to give back to society the fruits of innovation produced by collaborations with industries, by having the university’s Office of Society Academia Collaboration for Innovation Work cooperate with the Kyoto University Group companies and intensively managing their joint research. It also creates a virtuous cycle through academic-industrial alliance by getting the best out of Kyoto University’s strengths and consolidating its full power.