Takeda has opened a new research facility in San Diego, CA. The 165,000-square-foot facility is home to more than 250 employees focused on leveraging specialized drug discovery technologies and advancing discovery research in gastroenterology and neuroscience.
 
The facility is home to four research platform groups—structural biology, early target discovery, computational biology and biologics—that provide key capabilities to discover and advance promising molecules. The new research center in San Diego complements Takeda’s global Research & Development center in Cambridge, MA and its other global research site in Shonan, Japan.
 
“Our San Diego research center demonstrates an ideal balance between highly specialized internal research competencies and dedication to external partnerships both within the local community and on a global scale,” said Steve Hitchcock, head of research, Takeda. “By consulting with and leveraging our relationships with academic and industry partners and patient groups, we are able to operate nimbly and efficiently to advance early discovery research that could potentially translate into transformative, life-changing therapies for patients in need, complementing our efforts in our other global research centers in Cambridge and Shonan.”
 
Takeda’s R&D efforts are in four therapeutic areas—oncology, gastroenterology (GI), neuroscience and rare diseases—with targeted investments also committed to plasma-derived therapies (PDT) and vaccines. More than 50 percent of Takeda’s research pipeline focuses on non-small molecules, including biologics, peptides, oligonucleotides, cell and gene therapy, the microbiome and other modalities.