Leadership

Yusuke Tominari is responsible for the overall success of a business entity or other organization and for making top-level managerial decisions as a CEO. He launched FIMECS with his colleagues in 2018 as a curve-out biotech from Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. He started his career of a medicinal chemist at Takeda in 2006 after getting a Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo in Japan. His expertise is medicinal chemistry in immunology, oncology and immuno-oncology areas, Natural product synthesis and Chemical biology (Bifunctional molecules, Photo-affinity labeling probes, Cleavable linkers and others). Through his pharmaceutical experience, he has contributed 2 out-licensing and 1 IND filing as a leader of medicinal chemistry. He is currently having a big challenge, “Drugging Undruggable Targets” by the targeted protein degradation technology with a proprietary RaPPIDS platform.

Kanae Gamo is leading overall operations of R&D activities as a CSO. She co-founded FIMECS with her colleagues in 2018 as a curve-out biotech from Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. She started her career at Takeda in 2009. She has expertise in many techniques of molecular biology, genetics, epigenetics and next-generation sequencing in oncology and immunology areas. Through her pharmaceutical experience at Takeda, she increased responsibility of roles across target identification and validation. In parallel with FIMECS work, she got Ph.D. at University of Tsukuba in 2020. Utilizing proprietary drug discovery platform, RaPPIDS, to internal and collaborative programs, FIMECS seeks to provide life-saving medicine to patients all over the world.

Katsuhiro Uto enriches our board’s decision-making process with a fresh and impartial perspective as an external board member. His professional carrier began at Nippon Boehringer Ingelheim in 2005 as a senior research scientist, before broadening his expertise at two other Japanese specialty pharmaceutical companies. Throughout his carrier, he has been deeply involved in research and development, gaining significant expertise and achieving notable successes in respiratory, immunology, dermatology and pain management fields. He has also led numerous international research collaborations and strategic alliances. In 2021, He became a member of RaQualia Pharma, and since 2022, he has served as a Board Director, steering the company’s research and development efforts with visionary leadership.

Kosuke Ishii is an audit & supervisory board member in FIMECS. He is a certificated public accountant passed the examination in 2004. He engaged in financial auditing at an auditing firm, Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC. After promotion to manager, he transferred to Megakaryon Corporation, a regenerative medicine startup and achived to raise a fund of total 6.2 billion yen. Also he contributed to build and maintain their corporate governance for IPO as a corporate officer. Then, he founded BioAid Corporation in 2019, which is an accounting firm to provide business management support for Biotech. He has also served as outside director and outside audit & supervisory board members for several biotech including FIMECS.

Masato received his Ph.D. in 2001 from Chiba University near Tokyo in Japan. He then moved as a postdoctoral fellow to Karim Labib’s group in what is now the CRUK Manchester Research Institute.  Masato used degron technology to study all the essential genes of previously unknown function in budding yeast, leading to the identification of important new DNA replication factors that are conserved in all eukaryotes and archaea (Kanemaki et al, Nature, 2003).  In 2006, Masato moved to Osaka University as an Assistant Professor, where he developed the auxin-inducible degron for use in animal cells and fungi, in collaboration with the groups of Tatsuo Kakimoto and Haruhiko Takisawa.  In 2010, Masato moved to the National Institute of Genetics in Mishima, first as an Associate Professor and then from 2016 as a full professor.  Masato’s group has applied the auxin degron to many areas of cell biology, focussing on chromosome replication and genome integrity in his own group, and collaborating with many other labs around the world.  In 2022, Masato became a Professor at the University of Tokyo, whilst still keeping his lab at the National Institute of Genetics in Mishima.

Dr. Tsumoto is an expert in a protein engineering and studies interactions between biomolecules. He is very familiar with protein-protein interaction, proteomics, biophysics assays such as isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), surface plasmon resonance (SPR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), differential scanning fluorescence (DSF), and microscale thermophoresis (MST), spectroscopic analysis including circular dichroism (CD), as well as mass spectrometry and crystal structure analysis. After receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo in 1995, he started his academic career at Tohoku University. In 2005, he appointed associate professor at The University of Tokyo, then he is playing multiple roles of a professor in Medical Proteomics Laboratory, the Institute of Medical Science (2010~), Institute of Industrial Science (2012~), and Faculty of Engineering (2013~). He awarded FujiSankei Business i Special Prize, Grand Prize for Frontier Technology: Pave a New Way for Creativity in 2020, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Prize (2012), and others.

Dr. Fukuyama is an expert in organic chemistry in particular total synthesis of natural products. He succeeded the synthesis of more than 25 natural products, including tetrodotoxin, mitomycin C, Leinamycin, Vinblastine and Ecteinascidins which are complex structural alkaroides. After receiving his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1997, he started his research career at Harvard University. During 1978-1995, he eagerly studied the chemistry as assistant professor, associate professor and professor at Rice University (TX, US). He came back to Japan in 1995 and took a post of professor at The University of Tokyo. After working 18 years there, he moved to Nagoya University in 2013 as a designated professor. He retired in 2018 and he appointed professor emeritus at The University of Tokyo. Now, he is giving professional advises to pharmaceutical companies as an independent consultant (TFOS Consulting). He awarded Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2009, The Pharmaceutical Society of Japan Award in 2006, ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry in 2004, and others.