2024 Volume 41 Issue 4 Pages 605-608
In recent, a variety of issues have piled up, including worsening global environmental problems and the arrival of declining birthrate and aging population. In order to resolve these issues there are great expectations placed on Academia such as universities and national centers to help Japan demonstrate leadership to the international community. For Academia to solve these social issues and bring new value to future society from the perspective of science and technology, co–creation with society and industry, or open innovation, is essential. There is also a need to develop the way of industry–academia collaboration.
In this regard, in Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology launched an “Open Innovation Organization development project” in 2018, 12 universities selected and worked to develop a system to promote “full-fledged industry-academia collaboration”. In this project, each universities acquired human resources from industry and experts to strengthen the university's organization and system. And they are creating joint research that is deeply involved in corporate business strategies and also doing project management.
Furthermore, there are special characteristics in medical industry–academia collaboration. Japanese Medical researchers are not only researchers, but also have diverse positions such as doctors, pharmaceutical review experts, entrepreneurs and etc. This unique position of medical researchers has high expectations from companies and others. In other words, their knowledge and experience are expected to be of great help in a variety of situations in the research, development, and commercialization processes of drug discovery, medical devices and healthcare business. On the other hand, in medical industry–academia collaboration, especially in clinical research and clinical trials, compliance with related laws, contract management, and conflicts of interest management are necessary to maintain safety, reliability, and fairness.
This article introduces the system development and measures for promoting open innovation activities at TokyoMedical&DentalUniversity (TMDU). TMDU had participated in “Open Innovation Organization development project” mentioned above and has worked to develop a system with the unique characteristics of medical academia. Using TMDU's nucleic acid medicine project as an sample, introduce issues surrounding open innovation in the medical field and ways to promote it.
