Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. has entered into an agreement to establish a joint venture company, PharmaLogicals Research Pte. Ltd. with Singapore based Biostar Research Pte. Ltd. which is a 100% subsidiary company of Mitsui & Co., Ltd. of Tokyo and the Central Institute for Experimental Animals (CIEA).

The three companies have agreed to establish a post-genomic research base in Asia to contribute to the health issues (healthcare) of the Asian people in line with the policy of the Singapore government to improve the healthcare of its people.

Since the 1980s, when Chugai began research into drugs that target specific genes, the company has equipped itself with an array of advanced genetic engineering techniques. As a result, it was the first Japanese company to succeed in developing epochal biopharmaceuticals as Epogin (epoetin beta), an agent for the treatment of anemia associated with chronic renal failure, and Neutrogin (lenograstim)-marked as Granocyte outside Japan- an agent for the treatment of neutropenia associated with chemotherapy. Chugai is known as one of the most successful biotechnological companies in Japan from those two products.

Chugai is also one of the world leaders in antibody engineering, utilizing genetic engineering to create recombinant antibodies and alter their functions. Through its planned affiliation with Roche that has the most successful biotechnology company called Genentech, Chugai will make further advances in the field of genomic drug discovery and the development and production for biological products like therapeutic antibodies, and will become ever more preeminent in this field.

Chugai, concentrating on drug discovery technology, will collaborate in new post-genomic research with Mitsui, which has expertise in genomic analysis and diagnostics, and CIEA, which has a superior know-how in assay systems using laboratory animals. This alliance is intended to contribute to the policy of the Singapore government to promote the biotechnology industry, and to assure a base for pharmacogenomic research in Asia.

Singapore is one of the most advanced countries in Asia in focusing on the biotechnology industry and advancing genomic research in an environment of strict management of the people's health information. Therefore, Chugai has decided that Singapore is ideal as a post-genomic research base.

Mitsui is involved in genomic analysis and diagnostics business for Asian people in Singapore and last year established the genomic research company AGENICA as a joint venture on an equal investment basis with the Singapore National Cancer Center. This research has resulted in the discovery of several useful genes. Mitsui has also set up a local subsidiary, Biostar, through which it is establishing a network of the industrial, government and academic sectors and infrastructure in the fields of genetic engineering and molecular biology. With the biotechnology industries of Singapore and Japan in its core, Mitsui is now realizing the concept of "Asian genomics" through affiliations with other Asian countries aimed at new biotechnological diagnosis of disease.

CIEA has been developing systems of disease analysis to contribute to medical research and bioscience research since its establishment in 1952. It has established systems for the development and production of high quality laboratory animals and an international monitoring center to assure quality standards of laboratory animals. It has also established animal models of human disease applying highly advanced technology such as genetic engineering as well as new in vivo evaluation systems using these animal models. It is noteworthy that CIEA has recently succeeded in developing a highly immunodeficient mouse based on its accumulated expertise and know-how through 30 years' experience in research on transplantation of human tumors into mice. This mouse should make it possible to transplant human cancers that have been difficult to transplant into conventional immune deficient animals. This will lead to advances in cancer research and the creation of a disease model analysis and evaluation system, which should contribute greatly to diagnosis and new drug development.

Even with completion of analysis of the human genome and the overwhelming increase in genetic information, it has been difficult for pharmaceutical companies to turn genetic information into new drugs though they have invested large amount of money into this field. Chugai has established this joint venture as a means to put into practice its approach to achieve new breakthroughs through disease analysis and gene analysis using animal models.

As implicit in the company name of PharmaLogicals, the optimum strategy for drug development is to link basic research, including not only the physiological, pathological and pharmacological techniques essential to understanding healthcare but also the most advanced molecular biology, with clinical research.

The high value-added research data obtained by this joint venture will be used to expand the new high quality drug discovery research in the post-genomic age in close association with Chugai's other research bases worldwide.