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Ichiro KITASATO
President, Japan Bioindustry Association |
After graduating from the Faculty of Engineering at Keio University with a degree in applied chemistry, Dr. Kitasato joined Meiji Seika Kaisha, Ltd. in 1955 and was appointed to a member of its Board of Directors in 1985.
Subsequently, in 1995, he was appointed to President and, as the top manager of Meiji Seika, the two major business fields of which are food and pharmaceuticals, has fully demonstrated his abilities, making an immense contribution to the development of the food and pharmaceutical industries. In 2003, he was appointed to Chairman of the Board, and he is now Chief Corporate Advisor after leaving Chairman of the Board in June 2006.
At the preset, Concurrently, Dr. Kitasato is also in the top management positions of Japan’s three major biotechnology organizations; President of the Japan Bioindustry Association appointed in March 2004, Chairman of the Japan Health Sciences Foundation appointed in March 2005 and Chairman of Society for Techno-innovation of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. He has been continuing his energy activities for promotion of biotechnology industries including food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, agriculture, energy resources and environment.
In addition, he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon in November 2004 for his significant contribution to the world of industries over many years.
Lastly, Ichiro Kitasato is the grandson of Dr. Shibasaburo Kitasato, a famous medical doctor and bacteriologist who built the foundations of today’s immune therapy during the latter half of the 19th century. |
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Biotechnology occupies an extremely important position as a tool for resolving many difficult problems currently being faced by humanity. In other words, we have entered an age in which it is impossible to speak about the future of the world without using biotechnology in a wide range of fields, such as healthcare, agro-foods, the environment, resources and energy.
April 2006, Japanese government issued “The Third Science and Technology Basic Plan”(Basic Plan) for 2006-2010 in which total amount of the governmental R&D expenditures is estimated 25 trillion yen. The field of biotechnology / life science was selected one of the four priority fields in the Basic Plan. Therefore, significant policies will be deployed to support this field. In the coming years, industry, government and academia will join forces and do their utmost for sound development of biotechnology and bioindustry in Japan.
A report by Japan Bioindustry Association indicates that the market size of Japanese biotechnology industry is approximately 7.7 trillion yen (about 67 billion US dollars) in 2004, that is, the amount of products manufactured by conventional biotechnology is 6.3 trillion yen and that of modern biotechnology is 1.4 trillion yen. In modern biotechnology-based products, the main fields are medicines (about 53 %), chemicals (20 %) and service (11%). The growth of bio start-ups is remarkable in recent years, number of start-ups increased by 109 % during the latest five years. Major biotechnology projects have been conducted in some specific districts such as Tokyo metropolitan area, Hokkaido, and Kinki, resulting number of bio start-ups in Tokyo is largest (144), followed by Hokkaido (58), Osaka (42), Kanagawa (41), Kyoto (31), Hyogo (27), Ibaraki (26), so on. |
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Michael BERELOWITZ
Senior Vice-President
World Wide Medical and Outcomes Research
Head, Worldwide Development
Pfizer Inc.
New York |
Professor of Medicine
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, New York
Dr. Michael Berelowitz received his medical degree from the University of Cape Town in South Africa in 1968. He trained in pathology, nuclear medicine, and internal medicine at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, completing his specialization in endocrinology and metabolism in 1975. To pursue clinical and academic opportunities, he moved to the US in 1978, first to Chicago, IL, then Cincinnati, OH, in 1981, and to Stony Brook, NY, in 1986. There, he was Head of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and Professor of Medicine, and held many administrative responsibilities in internal medicine, research, admissions, and staffing. He joined Pfizer in 1996.
Dr. Berelowitz has served on the board of directors and on many committees of the American Diabetes Association and of several of its regional affiliates, and he has belonged to the Clinical Initiatives Committee of the Endocrine Society. He chaired the Task Force on Research of the New York State Council on Diabetes in 1988-1989. He is an elected faculty member of the medical honor society Alpha Omega Alpha (Mu Chapter of New York).
Dr. Berelowitz has also served on several editorial boards, including Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Endocrinology, Reviews in Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders and Clinical Diabetes.? He has authored and co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters in the areas of pituitary growth hormone regulation, diabetes and metabolic disorders. |
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The 21st Century Pfizer is a blend of the old and the new with roots in laboratories across the globe.? Our research and development staff of more than 12,000 employees is around the world, from La Jolla, California, to Nagoya, Japan.? Behind this, we have over 400 projects ongoing across discovery, more than 140 distinct new molecules in our pipeline, 78 product enhancement programs and a breadth and depth across 11 therapeutic areas that is unmatched.?
We have spent considerable time re-tooling Pfizer’s R&D engine. Our candidate output rate has never been higher as shown by our pipeline of 152 new molecular entities and 83 product enhancement projects.?? Our R&D in new and traditional areas is supplemented by a broad array of alliances and a continuing effort to bring in development candidates from external sources which have greatly added not just to the depth of our therapeutic areas but also have enhanced our technology capabilities as well.
Pfizer is rarely acknowledged as having a presence in biologics.? We have a number of marketed or soon to be marketed large molecule therapies.? Our biologics sales this year for products including growth hormones, Somavert, Exubera, Macugen and Fragmin, is estimated to total 1.5 billion dollars, placing us roughly eighth in the worldwide sales rankings.?? We are targeting to triple our biologics revenues by the year 2010 which could place us as high as number four in these rankings.? Compounds such as the large molecule HDL mimetics from Esperion to treat acute coronary syndrome, pegylated growth hormone to vastly simplify this treatment, monoclonal antibodies to treat arthritis and GI disease - all make up our pipeline.? From a single program in 1996, Pfizer’s PGRD biologics has grown to encompass over 36 programs today.
Our emerging oncology portfolio is and will continue to be supported by a major R&D effort.? In addition to the monoclonal antibody ticilimumab, we also have a pan-activating immunostimulant oligonucleotide in Phase 3 development.? Following behind our advanced development candidates in the mid and early stage pipeline, we have 22 oncology candidates ? compounds like AG-13,736, the next generation Sutent, and our IGFR antibody which is greatly anticipated by oncologists.
Countries are struggling to pay for the quality and quantity of health care increasingly expected by our citizens.?? As we have provided access to better medical care for older citizens, longevity has skyrocketed and their need for medical treatment increases.? Investments in better health care inexorably create the demand for more investment still ? an unending cycle of investment with no equilibrium point in sight.
When you look at US health care spending you can see the importance of leveraging pharmaceutical spending through technology advances to both improve outcomes and lower costs.? This point is particularly relevant today, when we have just finished the mapping of the genome.?? While our internal discovery and early development operations are both expansive and productive, we still scour the biotechnology universe for potential exciting development candidates and unique or specific technology alliances. |
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Wan Kyoo Cho, D. Sc.
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Professor Cho was graduated from Seoul Natinal University (SNU) majoring Biology in 1957, and conferred Doctor of Science Degree in 1969 by the SNU. He had been serving to the SNU as a teaching staff up to a full professor until 1992. He had chances to study reproductive biology abroad as a visiting scientist at the University of Pennsylvania (1964-66), the Johns Hopkins University (1971), the Harvard Medical School (1972-73) and the Cambridge University (1973). He had served to the SNU as a Dean of College of Natural Sciences (1975-79), Vice President (1979-80), and President of the SNU (1987-91). He was serving a Minister of Education, ROK (1992-93).
He was conferred the Honorary Doctor of Science Degree by University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada (1995), and Doctor of the University Degree by Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia (1996).
He is a founder of the Bioindustry Association of Korea (BAK) which was established in 1991, then has been serving as President of BAK until today. He is the founding President of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (KAST) which was inaugurated in 1994. He has been deeply involved to the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) programs, which is an international organization for developing the children vaccines, and is hosted by the Korean government, from its beginning as a Chairman of the Committee for hosting the IVI into Korea (1993-94), a member of the Board of Trustees (1997-2000), and as Special Advisor to the Director of the IVI (1997-2005). |
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As we are aware of, the world peoples are suffering from the incurable diseases, short of foods, polluted environment and the energy crisis nowadays. When the genetic engineering technology was first introduced in 1973, the scientists and the industries anticipated this new biotechnology as a possible tool to solve such the problems as described above. In fact, some of the bio-industries have succeeded to create the bio-pharmaceuticals, and the GMO foods. The current studies give us some possible measures on the environmental control and on the new energy sources as a substitute for the fossil fuels. Read-out of the genome informations of human and other living organisms will devote greatly to the medicare and the cultivating systems.
According to our experiences, biotechnology industry is a game of the creativity, but not of money like as the heavy industries such as automobile, ship building or steel mill. As we know, many succeeded bio-companies have started with a few number of the scientists, and eventually grew up to the big industries within a couple of decades. They have tried to recruit the world top level of scientists irrespective of nationality, region or gender, and invest 30-40% of the annual revenue to R & D. Of course, they are already aware of a significancy of the international connections between the scientific and the biotechnology industry bodies in their business. Upon their experiences, it could be said that build-up of the international cooperation system would be the most essential in biotechnology industry. The ways for the efficient cooperation could be, 1) developing the partnership, 2) finding out the joint investors and collaborators, and 3) founding the consortium systems among teams or companies. Such a cooperative system in bio-business could definitely contribute to speed-up the producing of the final results, to the cost benefit and to the upgrade of quality and to solve the current crucial problems which are threatening our lives. The efficient cooperation system could be built-up by 1) putting the research manpower and fund resources into the programs and 2) sharing the research facilities and 3) sharing the benefits born of collaboration.
A number of the countries such as USA (BIO), Japan (BioJapan), Germany (BioTechnica), EU (EuroBio), Australia (Ausbiotech) and Korea (BioKorea) have hosted the conference and fairs time to time to provide chances of exchange of the necessary informations on their business. Most of the teams or bio-industries are much interested in participating to the international fairs, and try to search for the possible business partners, distinguished scientists, eminent teams or groups to work together.
Surely, the BioKorea2006 has been prepared to offer a good chance to all participants to fulfill their desires becoming to the top and the best business in biotechnology industry. |
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