Vanquishing Menacing Malignancies, A Never-Ending Takeda Commitment

Takeda is a global biopharmaceutical business devoted on improving the health and future of people all over the world via patient-centered, values-based R&D. The company’s illustrious history in Japan since 1781 and its dedication to developing medicines that could have a life-changing impact on patients are firmly ingrained in both of these. The global headquarters of Takeda are located in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, and were inaugurated in July 2018. The interior of the building was created by Kashiwa Sato, one of the top creative directors in the world, and it perfectly captures Takeda‘s basic beliefs and commitment to always putting patients first.

Takeda continuously plans new strategies to outsmart cancer with the aim of having a significant impact on patients’ lives. Cancer is no doubt a cunning disease. And every day, patients who have few or ineffective treatment alternatives inspire the company’s researchers. Takeda is dedicated to defeating cancer so that more people may gain access to and benefit from medications that can change their lives.

Novel Approaches to Fighting Cancer

Over the past few decades, a new generation of cancer medicines has evolved, including checkpoint inhibitors and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies that alter or directly utilize T cells to combat cancer.

These methods have helped some patients, but cancer is crafty and can thwart and suppress treatments that use the adaptive immune system, one of the two interdependent arms of the immune system. This is particularly true of “cold tumors,” which lack anti-cancer immune infiltration or activation and frequently do not react to immunotherapy.

Innovative treatments, however, might improve the capacity of immune cells to colonize tumors and eradicate cancer cells. These treatments make use of the immune system’s innate immunity, a distinct division that can aid in overcoming cancer’s capacity to avoid immune identification in the early stages of an immune response. Researchers may be able to provide modern medicine potent new cancer-fighting weapons by utilizing both immune system components.

Immunotherapy at Takeda

Takeda Oncology has long been a pioneer in the creation of targeted treatments for hematologic malignancies. On top of that base, it has medicines for solid and blood malignancies in development in its pipeline.

While cancer is intelligent, we know the immune system is too. Takeda uses its expertise in cancer research and development to create novel approaches for using innate immune cells, a subset of immune system cells, to combat cancer.

Scientists have been fascinated by the immune system’s ability to combat disease for generations, but we have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible when we use this ability to fight cancer. By examining the innate immune system’s untapped potential, Takeda Oncology hopes to increase the impact of immunotherapies.

The innate immune system, which acts as the body’s initial line of defense against disease, has the potential to coordinate a vast array of cell types and mechanisms that may aid in overcoming cancer’s immune evasion capabilities.

Together, the innate and adaptive immune systems control a potent cycle that, if it is successful, leads to the death of cancer cells. Takeda Oncology researchers are investigating the untapped potential of the innate immune system through a number of development initiatives that seek to turn this cutting-edge knowledge into treatments that might outwit cancer and prolong patients’ lives.

Learn more about the scientific platforms Takeda scientists are exploring that leverage the immune system, with a focus on innate immunity.

Partnering with Takeda Oncology

To unlock the most promising science, the organization leverages a network of symbiotic alliances in addition to its extensive internal expertise.

Takeda Oncology is looking for collaborations for cutting-edge, ground-breaking, first-in-class and/or best-in-class oncology opportunities at the discovery and clinical stage that focus on indications or settings of unmet medical need and complement Takeda‘s research capabilities and market reach, particularly in hematological malignancies and lung cancer. Takeda Oncology is willing to examine options at the clinical stage in other solid tumors with significant unmet medical needs.

Takeda continues to look for novel technologies to bolster these next-generation platforms, with a particular emphasis on transformative techniques that leverage the innate immune system.

Takeda Oncology Headquarters

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Takeda Oncology has hubs throughout ten nations: the United States, Japan, Germany, Spain & Portugal, France, Italy, the United Kingdom/Ireland, and Canada. While its production facilities are spread across five countries, Austria, Russia, Japan, and the United States—its R&D center is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Visit takeda.com for more details about the company and its services.

Engr. Dex Marco Tiu Guibelondo, BS Pharm, RPh, BS CpE

Editor-in-Chief, PharmaFEATURES