Public University Corporation Nagoya City University (Nagoya City University), Chubu University, Daiichi Sankyo Company, Limited and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd. (Mitsubishi UFJ Capital) announced that they will commence open innovation research on a new cancer hyperthermia therapy.

Based on results of joint research under TaNeDS, an open competition joint discovery research grant programme operated by Daiichi Sankyo, the research aims to find and optimize magnetic nanoparticles with high capacity for delivery into tumours, and then study their practical application as a new hyperthermia therapy for cancer treatment by researching an alternating magnetic field generating device for efficiently heating the particles.

To carry out the research, a new company called OiDE RYO-UN, Inc. has been established and will be wholly funded by the OiDE Fund Investment Limited Partnership (OiDE Fund) operated by Mitsubishi UFJ Capital.

If the pre-agreed goals of the three-year joint research are achieved, Daiichi Sankyo will purchase all of the stock of RYO-UN in order to continue research and development for the project on its own. Then, at the time of achieving its own goals and after a successful product launch, Daiichi Sankyo will pay considerations to Nagoya City University and Chubu University in the form of royalties.

The research on a new cancer hyperthermia treatment is the third OiDE Fund investment, and Daiichi Sankyo and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital plan to continue to carry out open innovation projects to develop new drug discovery platforms using the OiDE Fund.

Cancer hyperthermia therapy makes use of the characteristic that cancer cells have weaker heat resistance than normal cells. This therapy selectively kills cancer cells through heating and there are expectations that it can be combined with radiotherapy, chemotherapy and cancer immunotherapy. The new cancer hyperthermia therapy aims to achieve high safety and efficacy by specifically heating cancer cells at a constant temperature.

TaNeDS (Take a New Challenge for Drug diScovery) is a collaborative drug discovery initiative being pursued by Daiichi Sankyo in open innovation. This is an open competition joint discovery research grant program whose scope covers research from the exploratory stage to the pre-practical application stage.

OiDE (Open innovation for the Development of Emerging technologies) Fund: A fund jointly established by Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and Daiichi Sankyo in 2013, and operated by Mitsubishi UFJ Capital.