日経産業新聞：新薬開発 早く、安く　　ポストを捨て米で起業　自前主義に固執せず

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日経バイオテック　米Boston Strategics社の古屋CEO、北山社長に聞く、「創業から1年半で数十のプロジェクト契約を獲得できた」

“Boston Strategics has completed dozens of contracts after launching a company one and half years ago”

by Osami Kono

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Boston Strategics Corporation (US) was founded by Dr. Keizo Koya (CEO) and Mr. Eita Kitayama (President) in April 2012. Dr. Koya has led various pharmaceutical R&D organizations in multiple global companies, such as Fuji film and Synta Pharmaceuticals in US. Mr. Kitayama worked at Nippon Shinyaku (Japan), Covance (US), and Synta Pharmaceuticals (US). The primary service of Boston Strategics is to provide pharmaceutical R&D support for pharmaceutical companies developing therapeutics.

Boston Strategics has created a highly efficient pharmaceutical R&D platform by using “True” Open Innovation™. They had an exhibition booth at the Japan Cancer Association (JCA) annual meeting in Yokohama (October 3-5, 2013). I had an opportunity to meet with both of them to ask about the current status of Boston Strategics.

[Question] “What companies does Boston Strategics have as clients? What kinds of collaborations do you have?”

[Answer] “We have made contracts primarily with Japanese pharmaceutical companies so far. There are various types of contracts according to types of projects. Preferably clients ask Boston Strategics to create a strategic development plan and operate the plan to develop their drug candidates with keeping their own intellectual property (IP) and supporting all costs of R&D. It is much less efficient and costly if Japanese companies, which are not so familiar to global pharmaceutical development and have less experience working with CROs, try to manage the development by themselves. Their involvement sometimes causes more problems, unfortunately.” “In-licensing is another way to work with Boston Strategics. If clients do not want to invest further,Boston Strategics can license-in their drug candidates and develop them through raising additional fund. It is possible and might be better to establish companies focusing on developing these compounds separately from Boston Strategics when we have many in-license projects. According to the stipulations outlined in the contracts, we provide a wide variety of services. Some include preclinical development and Phase 1 or Phase 2 clinical trials; some take care of only strategic planning of drug development. We have made dozens of contracts and several candidates are in clinical development already.”

[Question] “Boston Strategics established a special alliance with MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), University of Texas in July. MDACC is one of the greatest facilities in US for anti-cancer drug R&D. What does mean this alliance to Boston Strategics?”

[Answer] “It is not easy for Japanese pharmaceutical companies to have positive collaborations with MDACC unless they have considerably attractive drug candidates. Since Boston Strategics has established a special relationship with MDACC, we can motivate them to create very positive collaborative projects relatively easily. Oncologists at MDACC are very experienced and motivated to help their patients. They do not like to be told to just follow clinical protocols blindly provided by pharmaceutical companies with ‘deep pockets’, or asked too much  by staff at pharmaceutical companies who do not have enough expertise to develop oncology drugs. Rather, they truly want to have a collaborative and scientific partnership with appropriate partners who can communicate with them properly to provide the best translational and clinical research for their patients. They want to continuously improve clinical development plans by providing new proposals created based on new data, and become frustrated if the partner cannot, or does not communicate with them positively. Not many Japanese pharmaceutical companies have the right expertise to be their best partners. However, Boston Strategics can work with them, especially because several senior managers ofBoston Strategics used to work at MDACC and established positive relationship with them. One well-respected oncologist (MD) who has been working with them for many years will be joiningBoston Strategics soon. Scientists and oncologists at MDACC know various experimental and novel anti-cancer drug candidates very well. Many oncologists in Japan say that they know them as well. However most of them know these candidates mostly only by reading scientific papers. In contrast, oncologists at MDACC have worked with these drug candidates themselves. They are experienced with specific side effects of novel candidates in humans, for example. This type of difference in between Japanese oncologists and oncologists at MDACC is not insignificant. Rather, it is an important difference. We look forward to more positive collaborations with other Japanese companies and M.D. Anderson, and to the opportunity to assist them in adding significant value to their oncology drug candidate pipeline.”

[Original article in Japanese; translated by Strategia]

日経バイオテク：米Boston Strategics社の古屋CEO、「真のオープンイノベーションで創薬に取り組む」 platform

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米の構造改革　日本はどう活用　米ボストン・ストラテジクス共同代表

北山英太氏　「がん医師と連携　強み」s

古屋圭三氏　「創薬　映画創るように」e

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注目の企業：米ボストンストラテジクス社　日系製薬会社のグローバル化を支援

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Boston Strategics produces drug research and development process comprehensively for new drug candidates. Boston Strategics, a US company, was founded in April, 2012, by Keizo Koya, CEO, and Eita Kitayama, President, who both have a significant work experiences in Japanese and US pharmaceutical and chemical companies. Entering into an alliance last month with University of Texas’s MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), a world leader in cancer treatment and oncology research, Boston Strategics will use this opportunity to provide global drug R&D support for Japanese companies.

Pharmaceutical companies have been evolving their drug R&D capability by adopting Open Innovation utilizing external alliances to fill their technology gaps. Boston Strategics employs a revolutionary business concept called “True” Open Innovation. “It is a potential risk to have a large internal organization to move products forward rapidly and successfully,” says President Kitayama.

Boston Strategics focuses on devising a development strategy with high probability of success by eliminating internal leniency or traditional practices.  Boston Strategics collaborates well with investigators or institutes like MD Anderson, a leader in translational medicine (bedside to bench) , in conjunction with selected Contract Research Organizations (CRO) or Contract Manufacture Organizations (CMO), to meet the particular strategic need of the client and put it into practice.

The developmental lead comes from Boston Strategics, with an external R&D team of contractors and other external experts, working on behalf of the sponsor company. It is global expertise and experiences of Boston Strategics’ employees that makes such a business concept possible. Boston Strategics has seven employees, but only elite players with drug R&D experiences in large pharma and biotech, and strong connections with academic, regulatory, pharmaceutical entities, and CRO and CMO partners.

Boston Strategics focuses on the oncology area because the development scale is relatively small in comparison to other therapy areas, and with its focused, expert developers, “We can develop products for clients at 10-20% reduced cost,” says President Kitayama. “We also can provide new drug development with a minimal research and development (R&D)  investment by optimizing R&D tax credit or grants in the US or Canada.”

In the Japanese market, Boston Strategics is focusing on companies with no development function in the US, including mid-size pharmaceutical companies or chemical companies with pharmaceutical divisions.  Boston Strategics already has three clients including pharmaceutical or chemical companies and multiple programs going into clinical phase in the US next year. Alliance with MD Anderson and clinical studies led by the world class oncologists enables Boston Strategics to provide broader strategies. “We would like to conduct business development capitalizing on our strength that we can develop products more rapidly with less investment,” says President Kitayama.

Boston Strategics also looks for opportunities to in-license compounds for development that were deprioritized due to changes in economic climate or investment/development strategy. Large pharmaceutical companies have many such compounds and Boston Strategics plans to develop such compounds by applying its innovative development strategy.

<Company Profile>
Foundation: April 7th, 2012, with $20,000 in capital.
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Employee: 7
Business Lineup: Provide a platform for drug R&D utilizing strategic outsourcing
[Original article in Japanese; translated by Strategia]

 

藥時日報: ボストン・ストラテジックス MDアンダーソンと包括契約　日経企業向けに開発支援

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