In line with the reorganization of our business policy, we will focus on “pharmaceutical research” to maximize the value of medicine.
First of all, please tell us about your business.
Mr. Doi, Torii Pharmaceuticals: We are a pharmaceutical company engaged in the development, manufacture and sale of ethical drugs. Currently, we are mainly engaged in three disease areas (renal dialysis disease, skin disease, and allergic disease).
Please tell us about your current research structure.
Mr. Doi, Torii Pharmaceuticals: The Company reorganized its organization in 2020. At that time, we sold our own factory in Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture, and closed the laboratory. In September 2020, we decided to open a new laboratory at Mitsui Link Lab Kasai, with the aim of maintaining and managing the quality of our products and maximizing the value of our products for the pharmaceuticals we are currently selling.
Then, is your Kasai Lab not a drug discovery base, but a research base for maximizing value?
Torii Pharmaceuticals Mr. Miyazaki: That's right. In that sense, "drugs" may be the word closest to the image.
Mr. Doi, Torii Pharmaceuticals: Many trials today are clinical trials planned to obtain drug approval. We have obtained drug approval mainly through tests focused on the efficacy and safety of new drugs. On the other hand, when drugs begin to be used in clinical practice, various clinical questions can be obtained. In order to answer such questions, you need to obtain new data. This is called drug research. Kasai Lab is conducting drug research to collect evidence in the real world. Through these research activities, we contribute to the maximization of product value.
What kind of research do you take on every day at Mitsui Link Lab Kasai?
Mr. Doi, Torii Pharmaceuticals: Currently, Kasai Lab is conducting various joint research with clinical professors. We mainly analyze clinical samples. We believe that this data analysis will provide research results that can be returned to healthcare professionals, including doctors, and patients. The researchers at our laboratory are a small number of elite and are struggling every day.
It is a great point that you can use the facility in a pharmaceutical company quality environment immediately after you move in.
Please tell us about your encounter with Mitsui Link Lab Kasai.
Mr. Doi, Torii Pharmaceuticals: In order to reduce and relocate the research scale, it was necessary to find the next lab in a short period of about half a year. Initially, there were about four candidates, and we toured all the facilities, and finally decided to Mitsui Link Lab Kasai. The biggest decisive factor is that the lab can be designed with a straightforward drawing, and that access from our headquarters (Nihonbashi, Tokyo) is very good. You can move your head office and lab within 30 minutes. In addition, the scalability of labs that can respond to future expansion of business scale was also very attractive.
What kind of impressions do you have now when you actually open your own lab?
Mr. Doi, Torii Pharmaceuticals: Mitsui Link Lab Kasai is located on the premises of Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd., and I think it is a great advantage for pharmaceutical companies like us to be able to use it in a pharmaceutical company quality environment as soon as you move in. The establishment of the operating rules of Link Lab Kasai and the in-house facilities such as waste disposal and fire-fighting equipment provided a sense of security for us, which had a limited schedule until opening. It is also helpful that there are plenty of shared spaces on each floor where you can take a break. We also use the shared space when customers visit. Our employees also use the cafeteria of Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd. during lunch.
Torii Pharmaceuticals Mr. Miyazaki: The unmanned shop on the first floor is also convenient, and I often use it.
Mr. Doi, Torii Pharmaceuticals: We will enter our fourth year in September 2023, but until today we have a very easy-to-work environment without any trouble. In the beginning, for example, I was unfamiliar with rules on waste, but now I have experienced a lot of things and have been able to run the lab well.
Even if the size of one company is small, if you work together, you can create innovation that is as competitive as large companies!
Please tell us about the future you want to achieve through Mitsui Link Lab.
Mr. Doi, Torii Pharmaceuticals: We are also studying immunotherapy for cedar pollenosis. It has been reported that cedar pollutosis affects about 40% of Japanese people, and it is just a national illness. It is said that if you suffer from allergies, the quality of life of patients is greatly reduced. Through drug development research at Kasai Lab, "I would like to aim for a future in which patients suffering from allergies can be released from allergies."
Thank you very much. Lastly, please tell us about your expectations for Mitsui Link Lab.
Mr. Doi, Torii Pharmaceuticals: We are also looking forward to providing opportunities to encourage interaction between tenants. It would be helpful if Mitsui Fudosan could play a leading role in exchange.
Torii Pharmaceuticals Mr. Miyazaki: If there is an exchange event, there will be more opportunities for conversation.
Mr. Doi, Torii Pharmaceuticals: I think large companies are taking on the challenge of open innovation now. Many tenant companies in Mitsui Link Lab, including our company, are small-scale tenants, but I hope that there will be opportunities for open innovation among tenants working there. If we can provide opportunities and opportunities for new innovations to be born through promotion of interaction among tenants, there may be such a future. Open innovation between companies is not an easy task, but we believe it is important to do activities that do not close the door despite the rough waves of society.
