“Real Voices”

Aims to develop cancer drugs that you can recommend to a cancer patient in your family with confidence

Delta-Fly Pharma, Inc. is a biotechnology start-up that has developed a unique module technology for drug discovery in order to enable more efficient drug development. In just over five years since its inception, the company has achieved spectacular success, having taken three development pipelines from Phase 1 to Phase 3 clinical testing in the United States, the home of clinical trials.
Kiyoshi Eshima, Ph. D. , the company’s founder and president, describes how the company was created, the defining characteristics of biotechnology start-ups, and the relationship with Mitsubishi UFJ Capital.

Background

—The culmination of over 30 years of experience in the industry

“I was born and raised in Tokushima Prefecture, where our head office is located. I have been interested in chemistry ever since high school, and after school I pursued research, earning a bachelor’s degree at Nagoya Institute of Technology and a master’s degree at Tokyo Institute of Technology.
“My completion of the master’s degree coincided with a period when finding a job was very difficult. One of my graduate school professors suggested that, if I could get a job back home, maybe I should do that first and then start looking around from there. I managed to land a job in the Otsuka Group, the leading pharmaceutical manufacturer in Tokushima, and they assigned me to Taiho Pharmaceutical, one of their operating companies. Not long after joining the company, I was sent to study under Professor Eishun Tsuchida at Waseda University Faculty of Science and Engineering. I spent about 12 years there as a researcher working on pharmaceuticals, with a particular focus on the development of new drugs from functional polymers. Eventually, I returned to Taiho Pharmaceutical and was assigned to a variety of roles.
“When I was in the department responsible for nascent research on pharmaceuticals, I was able to observe how start-ups were managed in places such as Boston and San Francisco, where many of the biotechnology start-ups in the United States were based. This was the first time it occurred to me that I might want to try something similar myself. In the R&D division of a large pharmaceutical company, there was little scope for individual flair, and inevitably my ideas as an individual were subsumed into the whole. I was attracted to the freedom I would have if I had my own company, where it would be easy to pursue an idea from inception all the way through to fruition.
“In 2010, at the age of 61, I resigned from my position as director for research and development as approved by a resolution at the annual general meeting of shareholders, and when the time was ripe I founded a business in the same field. With over 30 years of experience and expertise in the field of cancer drugs, I am enjoying the challenge of creating new drugs for cancers that doctors will be able to prescribe to patients in their families with confidence.”

The role of Mitsubishi UFJ Capital

—Great people to work with

“It is more than five years since we launched, and I consider myself very lucky with regard to the great people I have encountered during this time. A person with experience of working at various biotechnology start-ups in Japan joined the company early on, and he had the task of arranging funding for the business. Within about 18 months of the launch, he had found us five willing venture capital investors, one of which was Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and that began a wonderfully productive partnership.
“It turned out that our consultant at Mitsubishi UFJ Capital used to work at a drug company, specializing in cancer, and this common ground certainly boosted my confidence in him in our working relationship. The fact that Mitsubishi UFJ Capital had someone within the organization whose expertise is so closely matched to my business speaks volumes about the depth and breadth of talent that they have.
“We have quarterly meetings to discuss business progress. I present him with all manner of facts and figures about our operations, and we look at various proposals and discuss the pros and cons of each. Because we have this common ground of shared experience in the industry, he understands what I say instantly, the meeting goes smoothly, and I am sure that he will give a fair and accurate account of our operations to his superiors.
“Given all of this, the good fortune of having partnered with the right people has been a major factor in the relationship.”

Our relationship with Mitsubishi UFJ Capital

—Module technology for drug discovery maximizes efficiency

“Delta-Fly Pharma specializes in developing drugs under the concept of module technology. The conventional approach to drug discovery is to identify the target enzyme or receptor, and then design and optimize a chemical compound for that particular enzyme or receptor, but that approach is extremely time-consuming and requires enormous human and financial resources.
“Using our module technology, we revisit existing clinically approved drugs that have been deemed to provide insufficient benefits to offset the side effects. We analyze these drugs to see if we can improve them by finding ways to boost safety and efficacy to a higher dimension to achieve balance. For example, we might be able to improve an active ingredient in a cancer drug by combining it with polymer technology and a delivery system that acts selectively on cancerous cells.
“Cars and smartphones are developed by an assembly approach, where modular elements are assembled to create the finished product, permitting manufacturers to develop highly functional high-quality products relatively quickly. If this concept is applied to the development of pharmaceuticals, it can reduce lead times and enhance efficiency dramatically. Also, by modifying the assembly configuration, we can develop different variations of a drug very quickly. Thanks to this concept, Delta-Fly Pharma, in little more than five years, has been able to get three development pipelines from Phase 1 to Phase 3 clinical testing in the United States.
“Our consultant at Mitsubishi UFJ Capital understands and appreciates the potential of this approach.
“Delta-Fly Pharma recently won an award of excellence at the third Rise Up Festa business support program sponsored by MUFG Bank(former The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ). We were advised to enter this competition by our consultant at Mitsubishi UFJ Capital. We believe that the award is testimony to the importance of our unique knowledge and expertise, such as the module technology.”

To all aspiring entrepreneurs

—Every business has a social obligation

“During my interaction with biotechnology start-ups in the United States, I was deeply impressed by their sense of corporate social responsibility. They have a well-honed sense of using their expertise to run a business, and then use it also to contribute to society. This kind of thought process differs markedly with Japan, where researchers are only expected to conduct research. It is my hope that young researchers in Japan will start to develop more of an American approach when they engage in R&D.
“Running a business means more than just making money. Every business has a social obligation. In our case, it is to supply efficacious cancer drugs with minimal side effects that will bring joy and hope to cancer sufferers at a price that enables our business to remain financially viable.
“In line with this concept, I believe that if we are conscious of the desirability of bringing science and business together, we can achieve amazing things, even with moderate funds.”

Interviewed in July 2016