At Fujifilm, Say Cheese And Develop Drugs
3 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // June 2nd, 2008 // 9:10 am
Might there be anything wrong with this picture? Fuji’s core film business has been declining for years, so the company is diversifying and recently paid $1.5 billion for Toyama Chemical. Now, Fujifilm execs have hit on a novel idea - they want to use the same mass-production principles for developing drugs.
Fuji’s life sciences vp Yuzo Toda believes it’s the same chemical process, according to some fascinating logic offered in a chat with BusinessWeek. For instance, he says that “controlling the chemical reaction to developing photos is extremely difficult. You have to start and stop the various chemicals at exactly the right time to make it all work. The trick is all in the conversion of chemicals. Drugs targeting a specific (organ or receptor in the body) work the same way.” Hmm…
The mag then notes that Toyama has a flu med, T-705, which may become an alternative to Roche’s Tamiflu, but requires a complex, 10-step process and one batch can take six to eight months. And T-705 is similar, but Toda isn’t fazed. “Our expertise is in mass production of materials and chemical compounds. Our films are made in a complex seven- or eight-step process. We want to apply the same principles we have used in making film to making drugs. It’s not easy. With each step your yield goes down…But we have decades of experience in maintaining high yields.”
But how does Fuji extend its practices to developing an anti-aging med? Toda has a fountain-of-youth idea: “To prevent film and photo prints from degrading, we have created new chemical compounds that act as antioxidants so they slow the release of free radicals,” he tells the mag. “We can apply this know-how to anti-aging drugs.” Never mind that our bodies are a bit different than film or paper.
“The chemical process is exactly the same,” he tells Busyweek. “In our library of 200,000 chemical compounds, about 3,000 curb the release of free radicals. We also have the technology to make cancer treatments in the form of skin creams. These creams contain a drug in nano-sized particles that are designed to be absorbed by the skin over a long period of time.”
Imagine what he could for cancer research.
Protistic
Great idea - photography and pharma have SO much in common.
Kodak had the same bright idea 20+ years ago. Of course NOTHING came of it. Nothing, that is, aside from uncounted $billions in investment down the loo and Sterling Drug (the company, but not the people) given to Sanofi for a song.
CMC guy
Fuji’s idea(s) may not be that novel to anyone that remembers Kodak endeavors in to pharma which ultimately lead to the dismantling of Sterling Drug.
A key comment is the piece is “Never mind that our bodies are a bit different than film or paper”. I think most chemists can figure out postulated chemical reaction mechanisms for systems (photo or biological) and many compounds that may alter the pathways. Chemistry does tend to provide concrete basis to do things however it is much easier to directly study, learn details and influences of isolated materials than complex body systems. Delivering a suitable compound and having the desired impact on a disease without bad side effects (therapeutic window) is the hard part(extremely). Then when all is done you can find out the compound works by a totally different mechanism.
That said I do hope Fuji can be successful in applications. I also think pharma can learn much from other industries about production efficencies since process development/manufacturing is often done relatively poorly.
Alan Hochberg
Fuji’s interest in the pharma industry isn’t so farfetched. While pharma has been off chasing genes, Fuji has doubtless continued to focus on synthetic organic chemistry, and on highly-reproducible manufacturing processes. There may be some unique assets there for the drug industry.
Success for Fuji will probably depend on who they work with as partners/advisors to translate what they know into an unfamiliar market, and to keep them out of some obvious blind alleys and pitfalls.
Despite the end of Sterling, Kodak had considerable success in the diagnostics market, directly translating some of their slide technology. So it can happen.