Research Structure and Network

Chugai’s research division has strengths that other companies cannot possess, such as the benefits of collaboration with Roche and open innovation through industry-university collaboration.

Advantages in R&D through alliance with Roche

Chugai embarked on a strategic alliance with Roche in 2002 and one of the strategic advantages is its ability to concentrate resources on innovative research. With a development pipeline that includes projects in-licensed from Roche and projects from our own research, we are able to maintain a robust R&D portfolio. Moreover, conducting global development of our projects in collaboration with Roche enables us to focus personnel and funds on groundbreaking projects and create a steady succession of innovative drugs.

In the early conceptual and research stages, including basic research, we acquire new candidate compounds by making use of our external network in addition to our in-house efforts. To continuously generate our own projects as part of the Roche Group, we need to create products that have value equal to or higher than the projects originating at Roche and Genentech. This is also a driving force behind our innovation.

Another key advantage is our access to Roche’s global research infrastructure. In the Roche Group, each company (Roche, Genentech and Chugai) conducts drug discovery research independently, while they share drug discovery platforms such as a compound library. This creates a significant advantage for Chugai to pursue innovation. The ability to share Roche’s research resources and infrastructure, which include a rich compound library is a significant advantage for Chugai in terms of cost and efficiency, and has dramatically increased our research productivity.

Open Innovation through collaboration with academia

Proactive cooperation with academia based on our technical strengths An agreement with Osaka University on comprehensive collaboration began in 2017

Chugai has established its research system within an environment of Open Innovation based on our technical advantages. By accumulating collaborative research in which we provide our highly useful drug discovery technology and know-how, and academia contributes their new discoveries, we are building a productive external network. In May 2016, we entered into an agreement with Osaka University for comprehensive collaboration with the Immunology Frontier Research Center (IFReC). In 2017, Chugai opened a Collaboration Promotion Laboratory and started full-fledged activities.

News Release “Comprehensive Collaboration Agreement between Osaka University and Chugai (May 19, 2016)” [PDF 141KB]

In addition, we have established and operate satellite labs (research subsidiaries) whose mission is to conduct exploratory research, which does not typically produce short-term results but is important for the medium and long term.

  • Like
  • Post
  • LINE it!
  • E-mail

R&D

Back to top