Russia and Japan will jointly develop cancer drugs

Russian and Japanese scientists will engage in the joint development of pharmaceutical drugs, including oncology treatments, as part of a new partnership. This was announced to journalists on Friday by Viktor Vekselberg, President of the Skolkovo Foundation.

"The scope of partnerships with Japan includes not only industrial partnerships but also medicine. Here, we have a number of partnerships for creating drugs to treat oncological diseases and for testing viral diseases," he said.

Vekselberg noted that this is a bilateral partnership. "This is not just a trade transaction to acquire certain technological or other production facilities. This is precisely the joint work of Russian and Japanese scientists and engineers, who will work on the corresponding products," he emphasized.

According to him, on Friday, December 16, as part of the Russian-Japanese business dialogue timed with the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Japan, an agreement will be signed between the Skolkovo Foundation and the Japanese corporation FANUC to establish a research center in Skolkovo.

"Today, as part of the forum, we will sign an agreement with FANUC, a world leader in robotics. The agreement entails the establishment of a 6,000 square meter research center here, which will house the most advanced non-serial robots for joint work," Vekselberg said.

During the event, an agreement was signed for the Japanese corporation Mitsui & Co. to acquire a 10% stake in the Russian pharmaceutical company R-Pharm. R-Pharm also signed an agreement with Fujifilm Corporation to form a large-scale partnership, which could include the localization of production and the creation of a joint venture.