Curadim Pharma

About Curadim Pharma

Curadim Pharma was a biotechnology venture established in Tokyo, Japan, on June 29, 2016, with a strategic focus on addressing intractable diseases with high unmet medical needs. The company was founded by personnel with deep research and development experience within the pharmaceutical industry, with Tetsu Uchigasaki serving as the President and Representative Director. The firm's core business model was to act as a specialized pipeline developer, in-licensing promising but stalled early-stage drug candidates from larger domestic pharmaceutical companies in Japan. This approach was designed to capitalize on valuable research assets that were deprioritized due to shifts in corporate strategy at their originators, aiming to advance these assets through the critical non-clinical and early clinical development phases.

The company's primary therapeutic area of concentration was immunology. Its initial flagship project was the development of a treatment for multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease designated as an incurable ailment by Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. This was centered on a compound licensed from Meiji Seika Pharma, a sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) receptor modulator with the development code CP1050 (originally CP9531). By February 2018, Curadim had advanced this candidate into a Phase 1 clinical trial in the United Kingdom to evaluate its safety and tolerability. The company expanded its pipeline by entering a license agreement with Ube Industries for an LPA1 selective antagonist (development code: CP2090), targeting idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, another intractable disease with a poor prognosis.

Curadim Pharma's operations were financed through significant venture capital backing. It was launched with the initiative and a major investment from the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), a public-private partnership, which committed up to ¥1 billion in August 2016 and an additional ¥1.2 billion in June 2018. This funding was supported by a syndicate of investors including SMBC Venture Capital, Nippon Venture Capital, Nissay Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, DBJ Capital, and Yamaguchi Capital. The business model aimed to create value by de-risking these drug candidates and then potentially out-licensing them to larger pharmaceutical partners for late-stage development and commercialization. However, in October 2019, INCJ announced it was revoking its support after Curadim Pharma passed a resolution to dissolve, and the company subsequently ceased operations.