Japanese firm Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC) has announced that MTPC and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited has concluded the agreement to share internal experimental data as part of open innovation to tackle accelerating drug discovery on January 18, 2021.

Under the agreement, MTPC and Takeda should share some of early-stage pharmacological activity data and ADMETox (pharmacokinetics/toxicology) data on publicly-known compounds, most of which have been used only within each company, and separately utilize them for drug discovery activities at both companies. MTPC and Takeda aim to increase the productivity of drug discovery activities through the data sharing, and at the same time, we aim to further promote open innovation, including collaboration with other companies, to make drug discovery research more efficient. 

In the process of drug discovery, we obtain various efficacy and ADMETox assessments for a very large number of compounds. Such experimental data are valuable assets for pharmaceutical companies, and used only within the company, and rarely used outside the company.

However, in recent years, as the advancement of open innovation, there has been an active movement to share properties that have been considered as on competitive areas by companies. Collaboration among pharmaceutical companies in non-competitive areas, such as sharing experimental data, will enable more effective and efficient drug discovery research. In fact, to realize and accelerate data-driven drug discovery such as AI-aided drug discovery, we need to collect and use various internal and external data.

MTPC utilizes Shonan iPark, a science park that was established when Takeda opened the Shonan Research Institute to the public, as its research base, and has built a human network with residents. We will continue to utilize the ecosystem to advance open innovation and play a social role as a drug discovery company.