Transforming the future of cancer treatment through drug development

My interest in molecular biology began when Dr. Susumu Tonegawa won the Nobel Prize while I was in high school. Until that point, I had been coasting through a carefree high school life, but Dr. Tonegawa’s achievement inspired me to devote myself to study, and I enrolled in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Osaka University. At the time, I aspired to become a researcher who could generate findings of Nobel Prize quality like Dr. Tonegawa, and I later matriculated to the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Medical Science. However, the professor in the laboratory I joined was very tough—so much so that roughly half of the students dropped out, and I, too, began to feel worn out from research life. On top of this, I got married in the first year of my doctoral studies and had a child in my third year, so securing employment was an urgent priority. Although most companies had already finished hiring graduate students, I was fortunate enough to land a position with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited.
In all, I ended up spending 19 years at Takeda. The job also gave me the opportunity to work in the United States for five years, and I ultimately went on to lead the oncology drug research team in Japan. However, around 2016, the R&D organization underwent a major reorganization, and many people, including some of my subordinates at the time, lost their jobs. As we struggled to recover our footing, Takeda launched a program to support employees with aspirations to start their own startups. However, overseas leaders were skeptical about how many employees in Japan would actually step forward, even with support from the company. Around this time, whenever the head of the U.S. research division visited Japan, he would strongly encourage me to apply, saying, “Hiroshi, you’ll put up your hand, won’t you? Entrepreneurship is exciting.” It felt strange to me that despite the existence of the program, not a single senior member at our Japanese research division wanted to launch their own startup. In addition, several of my former colleagues in the U.S. had started their own biotechnology startups, and my reasoning was that if they could do it, so could I. Finally, in 2017 I decided to take the plunge and start my own company.

At the time of launch, I knew nothing about corporate management and was totally unprepared. However, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to meet with Mr. Hasegawa from MUCAP, who was in charge of handling my case. Mr. Hasegawa had an outstanding reputation in the industry as an investment professional with extensive knowledge about the biotechnology sector, so I was a little nervous, but he listened to me intently and offered me a range of helpful advice. However, one thing I remember clearly is that when certain aspects of the intellectual property licensing arrangement with Takeda were still unclear, he was blunt, telling me, “I’ve already discussed this investment proposal with top management—you can’t leave these terms vague” [laughs]. Another point that left an impression on me was his advice on whether to launch the company with a single pipeline or to prepare multiple pipelines. Although I was still unsure at the time, he advised me that multiple pipelines would be essential if I was thinking of listing the company in Japan, so I negotiated with Takeda and secured several pipelines. Looking back, this advice was extremely beneficial.
At any rate, although I was proficient in research and development and understood the costs involved in various aspects, at the time of launch I had no knowledge whatsoever of entrepreneurship or corporate management., Honestly speaking, it was thanks to the support MUCAP provided, not only their investment in our Series A and B rounds but also from Mr. Hasegawa’s help in drafting our business plan through to MUCAP’s assistance in preparing financial statements for our first fiscal year, that we somehow managed to make it this far.

We are currently conducting clinical trials in the United States for our first pipeline, the CLK inhibitor rogocekib (CTX-712), and focusing on ensuring this becomes a widely-accepted and used drug. Although we had licensed out our second pipeline to an external pharmaceutical company, this project was returned to us. However, as the contract also included the return of any clinical trial data, we believe the pipeline can be quickly re-licensed, and have therefore decided not to allocate significant internal resources to it. While we do have other pipelines, at present, our complete focus is on rogocekib.
In cancer therapy, a new drug that emerges can extend a patient’s life by a year, and even if that drug eventually loses its effectiveness, the appearance of another new drug can extend the patient’s life by another year. If, for example, there were five such drugs, the patient’s life could be extended by five years, and if there were ten, that would be an extra ten years. I believe that the potential to achieve these incremental steps exists, and that our mission is truly meaningful.