Area of Interest
We identify the diseases to be tackled from the disease needs and the maturity of the technologies, and build a disease strategy. Our core business is Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), Allergy, Dry eye and Glaucoma and we have supplied some differentiated products to those markets in order to maximize their value. On the other hand, the new frontier is a more important disease group to achieve for Santen 2030. Those are Myopia, Presbyopia, Ptosis and Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP).
Holistic coverage of ophthalmic area including diseases with limited treatment options
| Core business | AMD* | Allergy | Dry eye | Glaucoma |
| New frontier | Myopia | Presbyopia | Ptosis | Retinitis pigmentosa |
Glaucoma: Our approach
We are developing robust new solutions to the challenge of glaucoma through worldwide collaboration, which will reduce our patients’ treatment burden. Intraocular pressure (IOP) lowering is one of the many clinical endpoints for glaucoma. Many patients need two or three kinds of glaucoma eye drops to control their IOP. Some of these patients can hardly instill multi eye drops into their eyes due to burden of instillations, unclear vision with glaucoma, and so on. We progress the collaboration with external research institutions to find solutions other than lowering IOP eye drops. One of the countermeasures to that issue is a surgical operation and the other is the optic nerve protection.
Protecting lifetime vision by minimizing the burden of eye drops
- Correspondence to surgical operation MIGS*
* Micro Invasive Glaucoma Surgery
- Optic nerve protection to control visual disturbance
Myopia: Our approach
Our approach is a comprehensive one by studying the patient journey, how a patient feels from early to late stage, and developing the best-in-class therapeutic options. In our plan for protection of the children from the blindness risk of myopia in conjunction with the low-concentration atropine product, the educate activities in collaboration with key opinion leaders are extremely important. We also need to educate people about how serious myopia will be and the necessity of treatment to avoid further progression of the disease. Our tasks are to accelerate the drug discoveries through collaboration with academia, and in turn to commercialize the low concentration atropine product under development and a next-generation product.
Protecting children from potential risk of blindness
- Enlightenment activities in collaboration with KOL*
* Key Opinion Leader
- Collaborative study with academia to accelerate elucidation of pathology and drug discovery
- Maximization and commercialization of low-dose atropine
- Overcome the challenges of low-dose atropine with next-generation drug
Presbyopia: Our approach
We are planning the new frontier by constructing a new evolution system. It is our approach for freeing the middle-aged and older people in the prime of their lives from the hassle of finding it hard to see. One important milestone is to explore the possible drugs that maintain lens elasticity in their eyes, while a lot of companies are working on the drugs with a pinhole effect. We successfully developed the non-clinical assay system. Now we are aiming for establishment of clinical endpoints and early proof-of-concept verification.
Freeing middle-aged and older people from hassle of being invisible
- Explore the possible drugs that maintain lens elasticity
- Early POC* verification
- Development of non-clinical assay system
- Establishment endpoints
- POC (Proof of Concept): to demonstrate the development concept. In development of a new drug, it means the efficacy/safety of the candidate is confirmed in humans.
Official SNS
