Basic Policy for R&D / Intellectual Property

Basic Policy for R&D

True to Nippon Shinyaku’s Business Philosophy, “Helping people lead healthier, happier lives,” in the Pharmaceuticals Division, we aspire to offer innovative quality pharmaceutical drugs to people with ill health, thus alleviating their suffering and enhancing their well-being by focusing on Nippon Shinyaku’s strengths.

Our fields of focus, in which we make concentrated medium- to long-term R&D efforts, include urology, hematology, intractable and rare diseases (e.g., pulmonary arterial hypertension [PAH], muscular dystrophy), and gynecology. In these four fields, we aim to offer quality pharmaceuticals to patients at the earliest possible time through drug discovery on our own, by in-licensing from other companies, and product lifecycle management (PLCM).

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In our drug discovery research, we aim to expedite the development of original drugs, thereby actively availing ourselves of in-house research achievements and external alliances. We are active in the development of nucleic acid drugs, which we have added as a new drug discovery modality to that of small molecule compounds. Moreover, we plan to pursue R&D with an aim to adopt gene therapy and other novel modalities. We are also determined to enhance our product value and expand our development pipeline via in-licensing from other companies, open innovation, and PLCM. In PLCM, we aim to maximize the product value through the addition of new indications and dosage forms to the existing products and compounds under development.
Through such R&D activities, we intend to create new products of new value while constantly offering innovative drugs that fulfill the hitherto unmet therapeutic needs. We are also planning to build a mechanism that enables us to conduct global-scale R&D to be able to offer innovative products to the patients worldwide.

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Intellectual Property

The Nippon Shinyaku Group sets the challenge of new drug discovery modalities and globalization in order to realize the business philosophy “Helping people lead healthier, happier lives”. We recognize that intellectual property (IP) plays an important role in promoting these purposes, and through the protection and utilization of IP, we will strengthen the superiority of our business and continuously improve our corporate value. Needless to say, we attach as much importance to the protection of third-party IP rights, practicing thorough IP-related risk management, including third party patent search.

1. R&D Activities and Intellectual Property

In the Nippon Shinyaku Group, Intellectual Property Department collaborates with other R&D departments from the early stages of research. By doing this, we can protect pharmaceuticals and functional foods produced in-house in a multifaceted and strategic way, using not only substance patents, but also use patents, manufacturing method patents, formulation patents, dosage and administration patents and so on. In addition, we are considering building and utilizing a patent portfolio to strengthen our global R&D strategy in the internal committee consisting of multiple department managers.

2. Understanding and Analyzing Intellectual Property

Based on the basic attitude to attach as much importance to the protection of third-party IP rights, the Nippon Shinyaku Group regularly conducts third-party patent search regarding its products. We also conduct patent trend analysis in specific technical fields and IP analysis of competitors. As a result, we manage IP risk at an early stage and utilize the obtained analysis results in our R&D strategy and business strategy.

3. Building Credit and Brand by Trademark

The Nippon Shinyaku Group determines the appropriate product names according to the medicines and functional foods produced in-house. By protecting them with trademark rights, we build credit to our products and our product brands.