Subject: Japanese Join World Push to Cure AIDS
Date: Published: 11/10/88 124 lines
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Japanese Join World Push to Cure AIDS
    ---
    Companies See Profit in Treatment,
    But Not Many Domestic Cases
    ----  
    By Kathryn Graven
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    TOKYO -- The Japanese like to blame their AIDS victims,
 the few they'll admit to having, on bad Western influences,
 but that hasn't stopped Japanese companies from jumping on
 the AIDS research bandwagon in the hope of future profits.
    Though still shy about disclosing specifics, Japanese
 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are stepping up
 their research on acquired immune deficiency syndrome by
 reorganizing laboratories, setting up new domestic research
 centers and establishing subsidiaries and ventures overseas.
    "No one wants to admit it, but they all think there is a
 big potential market for AIDS drugs," says a Japanese
 physician who cares for AIDS patients.
    With the rest of the world sinking millions of dollars
 into AIDS research, the Japanese worry that if they don't act
 now they may lose out later.  At stake, some argue, is not
 only the market for AIDS drugs, but also new medical and
 pharmaceutical technologies that may spin off from AIDS
 research.  The Japanese have made no secret of their desire to
 be major contenders in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.
    This year has been a major turning point in Japan's
 efforts to bring private and public research together to
 combat the deadly AIDS virus.  The government established the
 AIDS Research Center, a new division in the National
 Institute of Health, allocated money for corporate research
 on AIDS drugs and started acting like a cheerleader for the
 growing pharmaceutical industry.
    "Japanese pharmaceutical companies want to compete
 internationally.  We want to back them up to help find a cure
 for AIDS," says Soichiro Isobe, an official in the
 pharmaceutical affairs bureau of the Ministry of Health and
 Welfare.
    The amount of money the Japanese government is committing
 to AIDS research and treatment isn't large by Western
 standards.  For the fiscal year ending March 1989, the
 Ministry of Health and Welfare earmarked 840 million yen
 ($6.7 million) for AIDS research.  But that's nearly six times
 last year's AIDS budget.  The important point is that
 government's backing gives a signal to otherwise conservative
 and risk-averse companies.
    That's good for firms like Ajinomoto Co. The largest
 integrated food-processing company in Japan, and maker of
 monosodium glutamate, is trying to branch out into the
 medical field.  Since 1986, Ajinomoto has been marketing
 lentinan, a polysaccharide extracted from a Japanese
 mushroom, as an anti-cancer agent.  Now, Yutaro Kaneko, an
 organic chemist at Ajinomoto, and his colleagues are trying
 to see whether lentinan's immuno-stimulating properties will
 work on the AIDS virus.  The Japanese government backed the
 idea by picking lentinan as one of five drugs to be studied
 under national AIDS research projects.
    But Ajinomoto isn't content to rely solely on resources in
 Japan.  On June 1, it set up a wholly owned subsidiary,
 Lenti-Chemico Pharmaceutical Laboratory Inc., in New Jersey.
 And it has hooked up with San Francisco General Hospital and
 New York AIDS Coalition Hospitals in order to file for U. S. 
 Food and Drug Administration approval for clinical trials of
 lentinan as an anti-AIDS medicine.
    Other companies are following Ajinomoto's lead.  Dainippon
 Pharmaceutical Co., Japan's oldest drug maker, opened an
 office in New York in September.  "We want to gather
 information on appropriate products to export to the U. S. and
 to introduce into Japan," says Masao Suzuki, director of
 general affairs at Dainippon Pharmaceutical's Tokyo office.
 And Nisshin Food Products Co., Japan's leading manufacturer
 of instant noodle products, recently established a molecular
 biology institute in Boston to pursue AIDS and other
 research.
    Kowa Co., a Nagoya-based drug maker, got involved with
 AIDS drugs by accident.  For years, it produced a drug called
 dextran sulfate to treat arteriosclerosis and high
 cholesterol.  But in June 1987, two doctors affiliated with
 Ueno Fine Chemical Co. reported that in test-tube studies,
 dextran sulfate was an effective antiviral agent against
 AIDS. Almost overnight, desperate American AIDS patients
 flooded Kowa with demands for the drug.
    "This really caught us by surprise," recalls Kazuhiro
 Endo, a spokesman for the pharmaceutical division of Kowa.
    Because the drug was not allowed for sale in the U. S., a
 black market quickly sprang up in Tokyo.  This forced the
 Health and Welfare Ministry to take action:  Foreigners can
 now buy the drug at three designated pharmacies.  The drug has
 been in clinical trials in the U. S. and researchers last June
 reported mildly encouraging results, especially among
 healthier patients in a 29-patient study.
    Many Japanese doctors and researchers, nevertheless, are
 skeptical that dextran sulfate will prove highly effective
 against AIDS. But they agree that the international attention
 the drug attracted did much to wake up other Japanese
 companies to the potential profits from AIDS drugs.  When the
 ministry offered research funding for corporate AIDS research
 this year, more than 40 companies rushed to apply.
    Compared with the U. S., Europe or Africa, Japan has few
 AIDS patients.  As of Sept.  1, the ministry said it knew of 50
 Japanese who have died of AIDS, while an estimated 1,048
 tested positive as carriers of the AIDS virus.  But officials
 say the numbers actually are higher, with some estimates
 putting the number of carriers as high as 4,000.  Doctors say
 the majority of Japanese AIDS victims are hemophiliacs who
 were infected with the virus through imported blood before
 the Japanese government approved foreign blood-screening
 methods.
    Japanese researchers say they don't expect any miracles
 soon.  But if and when they do come up with an effective drug,
 analysts say they will be forced to turn to foreign markets
 to develop it.  "There just aren't enough patients to do
 clinical studies here," says Dr. Tohru Tokunaga, director of
 the AIDS Research Center.

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the 
personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the 
hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering 
from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]