Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd has established a new company for therapeutic antibody research, Takeda San Francisco, Inc. (TSF) in San Francisco, California, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Takeda America Holdings, Inc.
Located in San Francisco as one of the bio-pharma clusters, TSF will be positioned as a centre of excellence for Takeda's therapeutic antibody research, and Takeda will accelerate such research aiming to build antibody technology platform based on technologies such as, discovery and development of antibodies, enhancement of antibody activity, antibody-manufacturing, which subsequently will lead to earliest possible launch of antibody medicines.
In Takeda's 2006-2010 medium-term management plan, the enhancement of capability to create new drugs through in-house R&D activities is set forth as one of the management tasks. Takeda is now implementing "Re-establishment of research strategies" including 'initiatives for innovative technologies', as well as "Reform of research management system to pursue the quality and speed" and "Cultural change among researchers to attract and nurture talented researchers". The establishment of TSF is one of the important strategies toward above research strategies. TSF is expected to play an important role in Takeda's global research structure, together with the research functions in Japan, Takeda San Diego, Inc., Takeda Cambridge Limited and Takeda Singapore Private Limited.
"Establishment of TSF is an important milestone for our therapeutic antibody research," said Yasuchika Hasegawa, president of Takeda. "We will continue research investment as well as securing human resources so that we can accelerate therapeutic antibody research. To that effect, in addition to in-house research, we will pursue every possibility of utilization of external research resources such as collaboration and alliances, and acquisition. In parallel, we will further enhance our R&D pipeline by establishing innovative technologies for bio pharmaceuticals other than antibody medicine, nucleic acid medicine and regenerative medicine, for drug discovery and creation."