Iktos opens a subsidiary in Japan and entrusts its management to Hideyoshi Fuji

Paris (France) and Tokyo (Japan), February 14, 2024 – Iktos, a company specialized in Artificial Intelligence for new drug design, announces the opening of Iktos K.K., its new subsidiary in Japan. Hideyoshi Fuji has been appointed Representative Director of Iktos K.K., and Vice-President, Japan Business Development and Operations. Based in the Greater Tokyo Area, Iktos K.K. currently employs two people, with plans to expand the team rapidly.

Hideyoshi, 42, spent 13 years at Astellas Pharma Inc. (2009-2021) as an expert in computational chemistry and chemoinformatics. He implemented in silico and AI technologies applied to drug discovery and contributed to the creation of candidate compounds for clinical development. He participated as the only Japanese in the launch of the MELLODDY (Machine Learning Ledger Orchestration for Drug Discovery) consortium, the world's first federated learning platform for data sharing and collaboration among pharmaceutical industries. After his career with Astellas Pharma, Hideyoshi became an entrepreneur in 2022 and supported business development and marketing efforts in Japan for overseas software companies. Hideyoshi holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences and a Pharmacist License in Japan. He was certified Super Creator under the MITOU program in 2006 and studied high-performance molecular simulations for drug discovery as part of the Junior Research Associate program at RIKEN in 2007-2009.

Hideyoshi Fuji appointed Representative Director of Iktos K.K. and VP Japan Business Development and Operations

Japan, a key market for Iktos

Iktos, a leading Europe-based player in Generative AI for Drug Discovery, has built a reputation of excellence in AI-driven Small Molecule Drug Discovery through multiple collaborations with leading global pharmaceutical companies. Its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms Makya for Generative Drug Design and Spaya for Retrosynthesis have already been adopted by a large number of companies across the world. Japan is a key market for Iktos, which has already formed several strategic partnerships with local pharmaceutical groups such as Teijin Pharma, Ono Pharmaceutical, Curreio and Kissei Pharmaceutical.

In particular, Iktos announced (press release of July 3, 2023) that Kissei Pharmaceutical, a Japanese pharmaceutical company specializing in urology and kidney dialysis, has adopted Makya™, Iktos' Saas platform for AI-driven drug discovery. Iktos also signed last year (press release of June 8, 2023) a collaboration agreement for AI-driven drug design with Curreio, a Japanese company specializing in the structural analysis of biomolecules using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). In 2022, Iktos had announced a strategic collaboration agreement with Teijin Pharma to co-develop new AI technology and a research collaboration agreement with Ono Pharmaceutical.

Hideyoshi Fuji, Representative Director of Iktos K.K., said: “I'm proud to be appointed Head of Iktos's Japanese subsidiary, in a country where the company's technology is already a benchmark, and where the market is particularly promising. I believe that Iktos's AI technology can enhance medicinal chemistry capabilities and accelerate small molecule drug discovery, which has been one of the competitive advantages for Japanese pharmaceutical companies. Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the drug discovery process, and Iktos, in collaboration with its Japanese partners, is set to lead this revolution.”

Yann Gaston-Mathé, co-founder and CEO of Iktos, said: “Japan is a key priority for Iktos, and we are very proud to have built successful and trusting business relationships with several leading Japanese pharmaceutical companies over the last two years. The incorporation of Iktos K.K. is a very important step in Iktos strategy to become a leading player in AI for Drug Discovery in Japan through a local presence and development of a Japanese team to support our customers and partners. We are therefore delighted to appoint Hideyoshi to head up our activities in Japan. His mastery of pharmaceutical issues, his experience and his ability to forge strategic partnerships will enable us to further accelerate our development in Japan. Hideyoshi’s position as Vice President, in parallel with his role as Representative Director of Iktos K.K., shows how important his appointment and the Japanese market are for us.”

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About Iktos
Incorporated in October 2016, Iktos is a French start-up company specialized in the development of artificial intelligence solutions applied to chemical research, more specifically medicinal chemistry and new drug design. Iktos is developing a proprietary and innovative solution based on deep generative models, which enables, using existing data, to design molecules that are optimized in silico to meet all the success criteria of a small molecule discovery project. The use of Iktos technology enables major productivity gains in upstream pharmaceutical R&D. Iktos offers its technology through the SaaS software platforms Makya™ for generative drug design and Spaya™ for retrosynthesis, and through strategic collaborations with pharma companies where Iktos mobilizes its unique platform and leading-edge capabilities to expedite small molecule drug discovery for the benefit of its partners. Iktos is also developing Iktos Robotics, a unique AI-driven synthesis automation platform which dramatically accelerates the Design-Make-Test cycle in drug discovery.

More information on: http://www.iktos.ai/

Press contacts

Iktos: Yann Gaston-Mathé (CEO) - [email protected]

Pierre-Louis Germain – [email protected] / + 33 6 64 79 97 51

Charles Courbet – [email protected] / + 33 6 28 93 03 06