Cross-cultural communication （85）　

85) Competing with rare drugs
This is an article from the March 25th, 2019 morning edition of the Nikkei. The headline was “Rare drugs, from Japan to the world”, and it talked about how Japanese pharmaceutical companies are developing rare drugs for rare diseases (diseases that affect very small numbers of people, and there are thought to be nearly 7,000 types of these diseases worldwide), and how the government is supporting this. Compared to major pharmaceutical companies in Europe and the US, Japanese pharmaceutical companies have less capital and are lacking in the funds they need to invest in development. As a result, they are inevitably falling behind in the development of drugs for cardiovascular and anti-cancer treatments, which are the most widely used in the world today. It seems that the white arrow that has been raised or selected as the favorite candidate for is the development of rare drugs, which are rarely handled by major pharmaceutical companies in Europe and the US. In this field, the efficiency of new drug development has improved in recent years due to advances in artificial intelligence and data analysis technology, and it is now possible to make a sufficient profit. Of course, since the number of diseases is small, it is not possible to make a profit by selling only in Japan, so it is necessary to sell them worldwide. And when effective rare drugs are developed, there are no competitors overseas, so it is possible to make a sufficient profit.

Recently, a Japanese-made anti-cancer drug that is extremely effective has attracted attention, but not only is it effective, it is also extremely expensive.
Certainly, this would make the pharmaceutical company a lot of money, but it could bankrupt Japan's health insurance system. On the other hand, the patients who are eligible for orphan drugs are patients with rare diseases, and there are very few of them, and almost all of them have been designated as intractable diseases, so there is a large amount of support for the cost of their treatment, and the burden on the patient is very small. As a result, even if a rare drug is successfully developed, there is almost no conflict of interest between the pharmaceutical company and the patient.

A little over two months after the article at the end of March, the following article appeared in the morning edition of the Nikkei on June 4th 2019. Nippon Shinyaku, a medium-sized pharmaceutical manufacturer, has succeeded in developing a rare drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is also a new drug that uses a new technology called nucleic acid medicine technology. The phrase “rare drugs, from Japan to the world” has become a reality.

As someone from Osaka, where the Japanese pharmaceutical industry once flourished around the Dosho-machi area, I hope that this new way of thinking will enable the Japanese pharmaceutical industry to compete with the world, not just Osaka.

| BACK |