Eisai Highlights its Strong Pipeline and Innovative Approach to R&D at Company's U.S. Scientific Day

-- "Ricchi" philosophy focuses on hardest-to-treat medical conditions, including dementia

-- Research engines fuel robust and unique neurology and oncology pipelines

-- End-to-end business group strategy drives collaboration from development through commercialization

News provided by

Jun 29, 2016, 02:35 ET

WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J., June 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Eisai Inc., the U.S. pharmaceutical subsidiary of Eisai Co., Ltd., today held a Scientific Day to present its approach to global R&D and introduce the company's robust neurology and oncology pipeline, featuring innovative investigational assets being developed to address unmet medical needs. The meeting included presentations from members of Eisai's leadership, heads of research and development, and other key scientific leaders.

"We aspire to introduce novel therapies that will be preemptive and curative, as well as ones that will improve patient quality of life, in line with our deep commitment to our human health care mission," said Mr. Haruo Naito, Representative Corporate Officer & CEO, Eisai. "We aim to become a front-runner in both neurology and oncology, with a unique roster of scientific platforms and an end-to-end business model that efficiently integrates discovery, clinical and commercial functions."

The Eisai Scientific Day focused on the company's therapeutics pipeline within the framework of its "Ricchi" philosophy. In Japanese, "Ricchi" is a place where the landscape is clear, a place far away from the crowds, where one would build a home. Eisai's "Ricchi" involves understanding the unmet needs of patients with some of the hardest-to-treat medical conditions, challenging the innovation boundaries of new medicines toward preventive and curative therapies, and finding new treatment solutions.

The Eisai Scientific Day highlighted the following themes:

The investigation of agents with different mechanisms of actions to address the unmet medical needs for patients with Alzheimer's disease and dementia;
The utilization of world class, small molecule science as well as the focus on cancer microenvironment and "oncogenomics" with the aim of curing cancer.

The first session, presented by leaders in the Neurology Business Group, provided an overview of Eisai's pioneering therapeutic innovation and research partnerships in a number of disease areas including Alzheimer's disease and dementia. The presentations highlighted the following research areas:

Eisai's AiM (Andover Innovative Medicines) Institute (Andover, Mass.) is creating an immuno-dementia platform to realize precision medicines for dementia and a new paradigm of human genetic-driven drug discovery;
KAN Research Institute (Japan) is leveraging the multi-disciplinary study of neurobiology and immunology to discover novel targets and innovative therapies;
The Tsukuba Research Laboratories (Japan) strategy to leverage proteinopathy, synapse microenvironment, and novel neurotransmission platforms to realize "Total Care" for Alzheimer's disease and dementia patients; and
The company's clinical-stage pipeline in the Alzheimer's disease and dementia fields, including a summary of Eisai's clinical-stage assets.

The second session was dedicated to Eisai's Oncology franchise, and highlighted the company's research focus on cancer genomics and the cancer microenvironment with drug discovery programs based on the human cancer genome for personalized medicine. Members of Eisai's Oncology Business Group discussed:

How H3 Biomedicine (Cambridge, Mass.) is translating cancer patient data into powerful precision therapeutics, and targeting driver gene mutations and aberrant splicing in cancer cells;
Eisai AiM Institute's (Andover, Mass.) mission to deliver next-generation targeted immunotherapies with myeloid lineage targeting therapeutics to address unmet needs in immuno-oncology, including the integration of large-scale multi-omic and imaging data; and
Tsukuba Research Laboratories (Japan) innovation program in small molecule science to target the cancer microenvironment, and its discovery of next-generation compounds targeting drug-resistant cell mutations.

A webcast of the 2016 Eisai Scientific Day is available on the Eisai website at www.eisai.com, archived in the "Investors" section under "Presentations". A replay of the presentation will be available until October 31, 2016.

About Eisai Inc.
At Eisai Inc., human health care (hhc) is our goal. We give our first thoughts to patients and their families, and helping to increase the benefits health care provides. As the U.S. pharmaceutical subsidiary of Tokyo-based Eisai Co., Ltd., we have a passionate commitment to patient care that is the driving force behind our efforts to discover and develop innovative therapies to help address unmet medical needs.

Eisai is a fully integrated pharmaceutical business that operates in two global business groups: oncology and neurology (dementia-related diseases and neurodegenerative diseases). Each group functions as an end-to-end global business with discovery, development, and marketing capabilities. Our U.S. headquarters, commercial and clinical development organizations are located in New Jersey; our discovery labs are in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania; and our global demand chain organization resides in Maryland and North Carolina. To learn more about Eisai Inc., please visit us at http://us.eisai.com/.

About Eisai Co. Ltd.
Eisai Co., Ltd. is a leading global research and development-based pharmaceutical company headquartered in Japan. We define our corporate mission as "giving first thought to patients and their families and to increasing the benefits health care provides," which we call our human health care (hhc) philosophy. With approximately over 10,000 employees working across our global network of R&D facilities, manufacturing sites and marketing subsidiaries, we strive to realize our hhc philosophy by delivering innovative products in various therapeutic areas with high unmet medical needs, including oncology and neurology. For more information about Eisai Co., Ltd., please visit www.eisai.com.