Tokyo, Japan, Nov 13 – Toray Industries, Inc., and Aichi Medical University announced today that they have initiated an open innovation framework to propel wide-ranging drug discovery research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a rare disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. This initiative will draw on a drug efficacy evaluation technology that they jointly developed for this disease, collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to accelerate ALS treatment R&D.
Motor neuron damage in ALS causes generalized muscle atrophy and weakness. The average life expectancy after onset is three to five years. An estimated 10,000 people suffer from ALS in Japan (see note 1). Notwithstanding progress with drug discovery research, clinical development is very complex because the disease manifests in diverse ways, so a fundamental treatment has yet to be established. Medical needs remain highly unmet for this ailment.
Toray and Aichi Medical University together developed a drug efficacy evaluation technology for ALS treatments (note 2). They based this technology on a patient-induced pluripotent stem cell (note 3) derived motor neuron cell culture technique that can deal with the varying pathological states of ALS. They undertook this effort under GAPFREE (from Funding for research to expedite effective drug discovery by Government, Academia and Private partnership). That industry-academia-government initiative is part of the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development’s Project Promoting Support for Drug Discovery.
This technology is considered a platform that can very accurately evaluate and predict the efficacy of novel drug candidates and is expected to help improve drug discovery success rates and accelerate R&D. Based on this technology, Toray developed an integrated evaluation system by implementing customized equipment and workflows, enabling high-precision data acquisition.
Toray and Aichi Medical University will push forward with open innovation efforts to foster joint drug discovery research with this technology for ALS treatments. It will collaborate with pharmaceutical companies to evaluate the efficacy of their drug candidates under development.
Together, Toray and Aichi Medical University will leverage this technology as a platform to expand collaborations with pharmaceutical companies, thereby accelerating effective ALS treatments.