プレスリリース（日本語）

GENEVA AND OSAKA – The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC) have signed an agreement for GARDP to access over 50,000 compounds from MTPC’s compound library. The set of compounds will be tested by the Institut Pasteur Korea in an optimized high throughput screen with the aim of discovering novel compounds with antibacterial activity against drug-resistant bacteria. This agreement supports GARDP’s efforts to tackle serious bacterial infections by developing antibiotics while endeavouring to ensure their sustainable access. 

With few antibiotics in development, antimicrobial resistance is a rapidly growing global health threat. Nearly 1.3 million people die of drug-resistant infections every year. Serious bacterial infections, and especially those caused by Gram-negative bacteria, have been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global public health priority. 

The compounds to be provided by MTPC will be tested against bacteria identified as a critical priority for research and development of new antibiotics in WHO’s global priority pathogens list. Through this screening, GARDP and MTPC seek to identify novel compounds active against novel bacterial targets that could form the basis of new drugs.  

“It is a privilege to have access to MTPC’s compound library, which has never been screened for antibacterial activity,” said Laura Piddock, Scientific Director, GARDP. “Now that we’ve been able to establish our high throughput screen with Institut Pasteur Korea, we are well-positioned to screen libraries like that of MTPC, and we welcome the opportunity to screen libraries as they become available to us.” 

“Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation acts in accordance with our mission, ‘Creating hope for all facing illness.’ A key value in our work is access to healthcare, to which we contribute by providing our own unique compounds to be screened for research of malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases (Chagas disease and leishmaniasis), as well as by carrying out collaborative research on hit compounds identified during the screening. It is a great honour for us to have another opportunity to contribute to global health through this collaboration with GARDP,” stated Masao Nawano, Head of Sohyaku, Innovative Research Division, MTPC. 

About GARDP 

The Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP) is a not-for-profit organization based in Switzerland developing new treatments for drug-resistant infections that pose the greatest threat to health. GARDP was created by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) in 2016 and legally founded in 2018 to ensure that everyone who needs antibiotics receives effective and affordable treatment, no matter where they live. It aims to develop new treatments to fight drug-resistant infections, with a focus on serious bacterial infections in hospitalized adults and children, sepsis in newborns, and sexually transmitted infections. GARDP is funded by the governments of Australia, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom, the Canton of Geneva, as well as Médecins Sans Frontières, Wellcome and other private foundations. GARDP is registered under the legal name GARDP Foundation. www.gardp.org 

About Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation  

Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC), the pharma arm of Mitsubishi Chemical Group (MCG), is one of the oldest pharmaceutical companies in the world, founded in 1678, and focusing on ethical pharmaceuticals. MTPC is headquartered in Doshomachi, Osaka, the birthplace of Japan’s pharmaceutical industry. MCG has positioned health care as its strategic focus in its management policy, “Forging the future.” MTPC sets the MISSION of “Creating hope for all facing illness.” To that end, MTPC is prioritizing work on “precision medicine” to provide drugs with high treatment satisfaction by identifying patient populations with high potential for efficacy and safety, focusing on the disease areas of central nervous system and immuno-inflammation. In addition, MTPC is working to develop “around the pill solutions” to address specific patient concerns based on therapeutic medicine, including prevention of diseases, pre-symptomatic disease care, prevention of aggravation and prognosis. For more information, go to https://www.mt-pharma.co.jp/e/.  

About Institut Pasteur Korea 

Institut Pasteur Korea (IPK) is a non-profit research institute established in 2004 as part of the scientific cooperation between the Rep. of Korea and France, focusing on infectious diseases. Utilizing its core research capabilities, cell- and image-based screening platforms, to understand disease mechanisms and accelerate the development of new treatments, IPK contributes to addressing unmet global health issues, including emerging infectious diseases such as COVID-19, MERS, and Zika fever, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, antibiotic resistance, cancer, and neglected diseases. By providing fundamental technologies to bridge Korean and international bio-pharma science and promote multi-disciplinary projects globally, IPK stands at the forefront of drug discovery research contributing to Korea’s scientific, intellectual, and technical resources and global infectious disease preparedness and response. IPK is a pivotal member in the Asia-Pacific Region of the Pasteur Network, consisting of 33 members located in 25 countries, driving early drug discovery. www.ip-korea.org