| Jun 11th, 2002 |
Kyowa Hakko President Says |
The President of Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., Ltd. Dr. Tadashi Hirata highlighted the main features of Kyowa Hakko`s strategy to become a global bio-pharmaceutical company by applying its experience in drug discovery and biotechnology to develop treatments for cancer and a wide range of allergies such as asthma. Speaking at Life Science Revolution 2002 in Tokyo, Dr. Hirata said that by the end of March 2011 he expected sales from Kyowa Hakko`s pharmaceutical business to have risen from 140 billion yen in the year ended March 31, 2002 to 300 billion yen. Kyowa Hakko also expects operating income to be 60 billion yen and return on equity to rise to 20 percent. Taking advantage of its years of experience in fermentation, researching and developing cells and sugar chains, Kyowa Hakko plans to develop bio-pharmaceuticals based on antibodies. Thanks to a new technique developed in house and released at the end of 2001, Kyowa Hakko is able to produce antibodies with potent antibody-dependent cell mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) on a commercial scale. In company trials, antibodies with high ADCC were shown to be over 100 times more effective at treating disease than ordinary antibodies. In addition, since antibody-based bio-pharmaceuticals have fewer side effects than regular pharmaceuticals, there is a lower risk a patient's body will react negatively to the treatments. "Antibody-based bio-pharmaceuticals are particularly effective against a number of diseases and they stand to play a key role in our future corporate strategy," said Dr. Hirata. "Kyowa Hakko will take advantage of the next phase in the development of biotechnology to be at the forefront of developing unique and effective treatments for cancer and allergies."
From the fall of 2002, Kyowa Hakko aims to create strategic partnerships with other companies to develop these high value-added antibodies. In addition, Kyowa Hakko plans to use information from genomic research to create drugs tailored to suit particular groups of people. Dr. Hirata said this strategy will help Kyowa Hakko meet the challenges posed by an increase in the ratio of elderly people in Japan, Europe and the U.S. According to Japan`s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, the number of Japanese people aged 65 years or more is expected to increase from 17.4 percent of the population to 22.5 percent by 2010 and to 35.7 percent by 2050. While this rise is most acute in Japan, there are similar population trends in the Europe and the U.S. In addition, Kyowa Hakko plans to increase production of bio-products such as high value-added amino acids and oligosaccharides, as well as bioprocessing techniques such as ATP regeneration and genome breeding in the face of rising public concern about food safety and environmental degradation.
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