Fujifilm establishes "Cellular Dynamics International Japan" to launch IPSC business for drug discovery support in Japan

FUJIFILM Corporation has announced that it will establish Cellular Dynamics International Japan Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "CDJ"), a company for developing, manufacturing and marketing differentiated cells derived from Induced Pluripotent Stem cell (IPS Cell) on October 1 for building IPSC business to support drug discovery in Japan.

CDJ will initially import IPSC cell-derived differentiated cells designed for drug discovery support, manufactured by the U.S.-based Fujifilm Group company, Cellular Dynamics International, Inc. (CEO Kazuyoshi Hirao, headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin; hereinafter "CDI"), and market them to universities, research institutes and private enterprises in Japan.

Currently, animal testing is conducted in the development of innovative drugs to confirm candidate drugs' efficacy and safety, and this is followed by clinical trials conducted on human subjects.

However, since the development of many of such drugs that have passed animal testing becomes halted in the stage of human clinical trials, there is a growing market need for a way of confirming efficacy and safety on human cells before clinical trials can be initiated.

Amidst this market sentiment, there has been a global trend towards applying IPSC, which has the capacity for infinite reproduction and differentiation, to the field of drug discovery.

In Japan, various pharmaceutical companies have partnered with numerous government research institutes to examine the use of IPSC-derived differentiated cells on safety assessment for pharmaceutical development.

In particular, efforts are being made to standardize safety assessment, using IPSC-derived cardiomyocytes.

In May this year, Fujifilm acquired CDI, a global leader in the development and manufacturing of IPSC.

CDI leads the IPSC business, already supplying numerous users including large pharmaceutical companies with high-quality IPSC -derived differentiated cells in 12 types for drug discovery assistance including cardiomyocytes, neurons and hepatocytes as well as custom-made IPSC -derived differentiated cells.

Fujifilm is setting up CDJ in Japan so as to supply CDI's IPSC -derived differentiated cells and custom-made IPSC -derived differentiated cells.