九州大学 アジア・オセアニア研究教育機構 ブラウンバッグセミナー

Brown Bag Seminar No.
2024~56.

12:10
12:50

(wed.)

12:15-12:40

Introduction
Seminar()12:40-12:50

Q&A

12:10-12:15

Presentation

143

Online(Zoom)
Scan here forRegistration

https://temdec-med-kyushu-u-ac-jp.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN̲llcvoVVOQkG7D8ir9Xb7kg
Supported by Kyushu University,Q-AOS & TEMDEC

Until the day there are no
unmet medical needs

Chair: Assoc. Prof. Fumihiko YOKOTA (Coordinator of Q-AOS)

Key Words

Unmet medical needs

Neglected tropical diseases
Intractable diseases

ProfessorRare diseases
Drug seeds

Koji Todaka

Center for Clinical and Translational Research(CCTR), Kyushu University Hospital

After graduating from Kyushu University School ofMedicine and obtaining a medical license, hejoined the Department of Cardiology and trained
as a cardiologist. His research interests include
heart failure and cardiac function, and he also
engaged in basic research in the same ﬁeld atColumbia University in New York, USA. After
returning to Japan, he spent several years as a
cardiologist (cardiac catheterization) in Japan, andthen went on loan to the Ministry of Health, Laborand Welfare's Pharmaceuticals and Medical
Devices Evaluation Center (Japanese FDA, laterPMDA) as a clinical medical examiner. This led him
to work in the ﬁeld of what is now called"regulatory science.'' Due to the expansion of theClinical Research Center at Kyushu University
Hospital, he was appointed as the Director after
serving as Deputy Director of the current Center.
While currently practicing medicine as a
cardiovascular internist, as a pharmaceuticalspecialist, he is focusing on the development of"medical seeds", a discovery technology that will
become the basis of new treatment methods. In
particular, his lifework is to commercialize new
drugs and medical devices developed byuniversities and to deliver treatments to patientswith rare diseases that pharmaceutical companies
cannot address.
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If you get sick and go to the hospital, you will receive medicine.
Simply, this is because there is a drug that works for them. In fact,
there are many diseases that cannot be treated. For example,
there are more than 340 designated intractable diseases thathave a small number of patients, but most of them have no drugs
or treatments, so they are also referred to as "unmet medical
needs .' ' Until now, phar maceu tic al comp anie s have been
responsible for developing (commercializing) drugs, and eachprojec t requires a huge budget of 30 billion yen, and if thenumber of patients is small, the investment cannot be recovered.
We, as an ARO, lead university experts and develop treatments forrare diseases that are not developed by companies, using drug
seeds discovered by universities at a low cost. Universities cantake measures to reduce development costs, such as streamlining
collaboration between experts and physician specialists.
Infectious diseases are diseases that have a large number ofpatients, but many of them, such as dengue fever, are found onlyin Asia and Oceania, and are called "neglected tropical diseases,''
for which drugs are difﬁcult to develop due to problems such as
income disparities bet ween Nor th and South. Here too, ourresearchers are working with local universities to develop new
medicines they have discovered.
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