The National Cancer Center will establish a system for cooperating on the development of cancer drugs with four medical institutions in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. The scheme aims to expedite the approval of new drugs.
Under the new system, researchers will cooperate on early-stage clinical testing of drugs on patients, through which pharmaceutical companies survey the efficacy and safety of new medicines.
The envisaged system aims to provide new drugs to patients in Asia around the same time as their release in the United States and Europe, where drugs are often first sold.
The Tokyo-based center will conclude an agreement with its prospective partners this autumn.
After pharmaceutical companies conduct clinical tests of new drugs, they are screened by the government before receiving final approval. The pace of screenings has accelerated in Japan in recent years, reducing the lag in release with the United States.
According to some estimates, however, Japanese government screenings begin a year behind U.S. screenings because domestic clinical trials start later.
The center will cooperate on drug development with hospitals run by Seoul National University, National Taiwan University, the National Cancer Centre Singapore and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
